CNN
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First Lady Jill Biden will have surgery next week to remove a lesion found during a routine skin cancer checkup, her press secretary Vanessa Valdivia told CNN on Wednesday.
“A small lesion was found above the first lady’s right eye during a routine skin cancer screening,” White House physician Kevin O’Connor said in a memo released by the first lady’s office. Out of caution, the doctor recommended removing it.”
Biden is scheduled to undergo an outpatient procedure known as Mohs surgery on Jan. 11 at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Mohs surgery is usually an outpatient procedure in which a thin layer of skin is removed to look for signs of the most common types of skin cancer and other less common skin cancers. Care is taken to remove cancerous tissue while leaving healthy tissue.
The 71-year-old first lady, the oldest sitting first lady in modern American history, takes classes at her local Barre gym several times a week.
The Bidens returned this week from a vacation in St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where President Joe Biden said he would discuss the possibility of re-election with his family. Many Democrats close to Biden have said they are confident Biden will run again, and there seems to be little dissent within his family.