Skin from McCain's cheek not cancerous, biopsy shows

7/30/2008

WASHINGTON - A biopsy of a small patch of skin removed from Republican Sen. John McCain's right cheek showed no evidence of skin cancer, doctors said yesterday.

"No further treatment is necessary," Michael Yardley, a spokesman for the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., said in a statement released through Mr. McCain's presidential campaign.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting had the skin removed Monday as a precaution during a regular checkup with his dermatologist near Phoenix.

The Arizona senator gets an in-depth skin cancer check every few months because of a medical history of dangerous melanomas.

Mr. McCain, who turns 72 in August, has had four malignant melanomas - a potentially lethal type of skin cancer - surgically removed since 1993. Three were limited to the top layers of skin. The fourth was invasive.