Doctors removed a cancerous skin lesion from US Vice President Joe Biden’s chest in February, and the procedure was a success, the president’s doctor confirmed on Friday. Biden is 80 years old.
Biden’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said in a report released by the White House that since basal cell carcinomas “do not tend to’spread’ or metastasize,” “no further treatment is required.”
After Biden’s annual checkup on February 16, during which the lesion was removed, the vice president was deemed “fit for duty.”
O’Connor reported on Friday that the president’s biopsy site was healing well and that he would be undergoing further dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive health care.
He remarked that “more serious skin cancers such as melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma” were more dangerous than basal cell carcinoma.
As O’Connor stated after Biden’s examination in February, “President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency,” including those of Chief Executive, Head of State, and Commander in Chief.
The last medical exam before Biden, the oldest person to ever run for US president, announces his intention to seek reelection in 2024.
When Biden went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the Washington suburbs in February, he finished a battery of tests that had begun the previous year.
According to what O’Connor had written at the time, the president had spent “a good deal of time in the sun in his youth” and had undergone regular treatment for the removal of localized, non-melanoma skin cancers.
