Doctor: Biden had cancerous lesion removed in February

Washington, Mar 3 (EFE).- US President Joe Biden had a cancerous skin lesion surgically removed from his chest last month, his physician said on Friday.

In a letter to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Dr. Kevin O’Connor wrote that the lesion was removed as part of Biden’s comprehensive health assessment.

That earlier letter mentioned the skin lesion, saying it had been “excised … and sent for traditional biopsy” and that the results were pending.

At that time, O’Connor said the president was a “healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”

Friday’s letter said all cancerous tissue had been successfully removed and that the area around the biopsy site was treated presumptively with “electrodessication and curettage” at the time of the biopsy.

“No further treatment is required,” O’Connor wrote.

The physician said basal cell carcinoma lesions “do not tend to spread or metastasize,” as some more serious skin cancers such as “melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma are known to do.”

He noted, however, that they do have the potential to grow in size and lead to a “more significant issue as well as increased challenges for surgical removal.”

Biden, the oldest president in US history, also underwent an “extremely detailed neurologic exam” during his most recent physical examination, O’Connor wrote on Feb. 16.

Those tests produced no findings consistent with any central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, he said then. EFE

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