WASHINGTON – First lady Laura Bush said Tuesday she did not disclose she had a skin cancer tumor removed five weeks ago because “it’s no big deal and we knew it was no big deal at the time.”
Her comments, relayed by presidential spokesman Tony Snow, came a day after the White House belatedly acknowledged she had a squamous cell carcinoma, the second most common form of skin cancer, excised from her right shin a few days after the Nov. 7 election. The troublesome patch was about the size of a nickel, her spokeswoman said.
Unlike her husband, the first lady is not an elected official, Snow said. “She’s got the same right to medical privacy that you do,” he told reporters at a sometimes-contentious briefing. He likened her skin cancer to colds, the flu, stomachaches and other conditions that are not life-threatening.
Bush’s problem was revealed only after the first lady’s press secretary, Susan Whitson, was asked Monday evening why Bush was wearing a bandage on her leg at a Hanukkah ceremony.
Bush, 60, has a significantly increased risk of developing a second nonmelanoma skin cancer within the next three to five years, said Dr. Clifford Perlis, a dermatologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
Doctors vary on how closely to watch for that, but at Fox Chase, the advice generally is to come in for skin exams every six months for two years. If no new lesions appear, patients are then checked annually.
A squamous cell carcinoma is a tumor that affects the middle layer of the skin. It is more aggressive than basal cell cancer, the most common form of skin cancer. Squamous cell cancer is more likely than basal cell to spread to other locations, so patients need to have lymph nodes in the region near the tumor routinely examined, according to the National Cancer Institute’s Web site.
Bush was noticed wearing a bandage on her leg on Oct. 23. Questioned at the time, Whitson said it was simply a sore.
Monday night, Whitson said. Bush had a biopsy in late October because the sore was not healing. It was determined to be a squamous cell carcinoma and was removed a few days after the election, Whitson said.
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