What "Moss surgery" did Joe Biden undergo?
Officials revealed that former US President Joe Biden underwent
a common surgery to remove skin cancer from his forehead.
A White House spokesman told the British newspaper "Daily Mail" on Thursday that Biden (82 years old) recently underwent a surgery called
"Moss surgery"
which is used to remove certain types of skin cancers, including some types of melanomas, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and other less common types of skin cancers.
It is the same operation that his wife
- former First Lady Jill Biden, underwent in 2023.
- The news was confirmed after Biden raised health concerns
- when he walked out of a church in Delaware earlier this month
and there appeared to be a large wound on his head.
In August
Biden was seen wearing a bandage covering the same spot on his forehead during the funeral of former Delaware Governor and Congressman Mike Castle.
Biden had previously removed basal cell carcinoma from his chest in 2023, using Mohs surgery, while Jill Biden underwent the same cancer removal from her eye in the same year. It is unclear which type of skin cancer was removed this time.
The former president is also currently undergoing treatment for stage 4 prostate cancer. This disease has spread to his bones. It is still unclear whether skin cancer has spread elsewhere.
During Mohs surgery
thin layers of skin are removed. Each thin layer
is carefully examined to detect signs of cancer.
This process
continues until it is confirmed that there are no signs of cancer.
This surgery usually takes a few hours. It is done using a local anesthetic to numb the area, which means that patients are alert. It is unclear whether Biden was awake during the procedure and exactly when it took place.
The goal of Mohs surgery
is to remove as much cancerous skin tissue as possible while causing as little damage as possible to surrounding healthy tissue. It is a gradual process where layers of skin are removed in stages.
First
the surgeon uses a scalpel to remove cancerous skin tissue at the superficial level, knowing that there may be more cancerous tissue beneath the surface, as the majority of skin cancer is usually hidden beneath the surface.
The surgeon
plans where to extract cancerous tissue in the body
- takes a sample of that tissue to the laboratory
- dyes it, and cuts it into sections. Specialized technicians
- place these tissue samples on slides for examination under a microscope.
The doctor then examines the edges of each section of tissue to look for evidence of cancer remnants. If the surgeon finds cancer cells under a microscope, their location is determined on a map.
Some wounds
resulting from Mohs surgery are large enough to require stitches to close, and usually heal within two weeks. Smaller wounds may heal on their own within about a month. Patients are usually able to leave the clinic two to six hours after surgery, depending on the size of the affected area.