Former President Joe Biden has undergone surgery for skin cancer, his spokesperson confirmed Thursday, after video footage showed him with a fresh scar on his forehead while leaving a church service in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Kelly Scully, a spokesperson for Biden, told The Associated Press that he received Mohs surgery, a procedure in which thin layers of skin are cut away until no cancer cells remain. The Mirror US reported that Biden’s office has been contacted for additional information.
The 82-year-old has faced multiple health challenges in recent years. Two years ago, doctors removed a skin lesion from his chest that was diagnosed as basal cell carcinoma. His wife, former First Lady Jill Biden, also underwent Mohs surgery in 2023 to remove a basal cell carcinoma found above her right eye.
Biden was spotted Wednesday evening at an ice cream shop, wearing a baseball cap that appeared to cover the bandaged area. He had previously been seen with a bandage on the same spot during the August funeral of Rep. Mike Castle.
Earlier this year, Biden disclosed that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Doctors assigned it a Gleason score of 9 and a Grade Group of 5, indicating a severe stage of the illness.
“Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote on social media in May following the announcement. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places.”
Mohs surgeries are relatively common outpatient procedures. They are performed on more than 876,000 skin cancers in the United States each year, typically lasting two to six hours. Patients usually go home the same day.
Even before his prostate cancer diagnosis, Biden’s health had been a subject of political concern. Persistent questions about his age and fitness ultimately pushed him to abandon his reelection bid, clearing the path for Donald Trump to reclaim the presidency by defeating Kamala Harris.
Throughout his presidency and beyond, Biden has made fighting cancer a central mission. After the 2015 death of his son Beau Biden from brain cancer, he revived a “cancer moonshot” initiative aimed at boosting funding for research and improving treatment options. He also signed the PACT Act, expanding healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, which he has linked to Beau’s illness.
The former president’s latest health update comes as Trump, now 79, faced his own wave of speculation after disappearing from public view for several days. Conspiracy theories circulated online, but Trump reappeared at the White House earlier this week, holding a routine press conference.