Jill Biden has cancerous lesions removed from her eye and chest

First Lady Jill Biden had two cancerous lesions removed and a third lesion was being examined.

Surgeons took out a cancerous lesion from her right eye and another one on her chest on Wednesday. A third lesion on her left eyelid is being looked at.

The lesion on Biden’s right eye was ‘fully excised, with margins, and was sent for standard microscopic examination’, said the president’s physician Dr Kevin O’Connor. The lesion on her left eye and one newly found on her chest were both basal cell carcinoma, he said.

‘All cancerous tissue was successfully removed,’ O’Connor said. 

Basal cell carcinoma is a slow-growing cancer usually on the surface of the skin. It is typically removed with a shallow incision and is not often life-threatening. It is the most curable type of skin cancer.

Biden, 71, was ‘experiencing some facial swelling and bruising, but is in good spirits and is feeling well’, O’Connor said.

President Joe Biden accompanied his wife to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in the morning and the two spent the day there.

She was expected to return to the White House the same evening. The president returned to the White House by himself after nine hours at the hospital.

The White House announced last Thursday that the first lady would undergo Mohs surgery, an outpatient procedure, to remove the lesions and examine them.

Annually, about 3.3million Americans get basal cell carcinoma or another easy-to-treat type called squamous cell cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. The majority of those cases are basal cell.

The first lady had a ‘common medical procedure’ at an outpatient center done in April 2021. The White House did not provide details besides that she ‘tolerated the procedure’ and was heading back to the White House to resume her schedule.

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