Clinton’s Checkup Marred by Higher Cholesterol, Possible Skin Cancer

President Clinton’s doctors said Friday that they found a “very suspicious” spot on his back that may be a skin cancer.

“He’s had sun damage spots before, but this is the first time he’s had spots suspicious for skin cancer,” Dr. David Corbett, a dermatologist, said after Clinton’s checkup at the Bethesda, Md., Naval Hospital.

A biopsy was performed, and the results will be announced next week. If the lesion is a basal cell skin cancer, as suspected, it is a slow-growing, easily treated skin tumor, the doctors indicated.

Clinton had his sixth and final physical examination at the hospital as president and was pronounced in generally good health. But he shares the same health problems as many busy middle-age executives.

“It’s a combination of not the right type of diet, food on the road and long hours, and also not enough exercise,” Dr. Connie Mariano, the president’s personal physician, told reporters.

The exam disclosed that the president has an elevated cholesterol level, 233. He was given a prescription for the medication Zocor. His LDL reading, the measurement of “bad” cholesterol, rose to 177, from a reading of 134 at his previous physical in September 1999.

The president was unruffled by the results of the three-hour examination. “My cholesterol is a little too high because I haven’t exercised and I ate all that Christmas dessert. But in six months it’ll be back to normal. I knew I was doing it, but, what the heck, it was my last time.”

“Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer,” Corbett said. “This is a little locally growing type of skin cancer, not a threat to his health or anything--it’s a very small spot--if it turns out to be that.”

If the biopsy shows the spot is cancerous, there are “methods that treat these very easily, and it should be no problem at all,” he said. The lesion might simply be a benign inflammation.

At the president’s previous physicals, doctors found sun damage spots and small cysts or lesions that were benign.

The president weighed 214 pounds, the same as at his previous physical. The normal weight for a man of his size, 6 feet, 2 inches, is 190 to 220 pounds.

The president was not in the “top shape he wanted to be in but . . . he passed” the physical, Mariano said. The exam was “fairly normal” except for the skin lesion and the elevated cholesterol, she noted. “But those things are very easily managed on an outpatient basis.”

When the president leaves office in a week, at noon Jan. 20, he will have more time to focus on his health, according to the doctors. “We gave him things to look at in the future, for him to work on, such as diet, such as exercise, and I think he should do very well with that, with a new lifestyle for him,” said Mariano, a rear admiral who has been the president’s personal physician for his eight years in office.

Without a job in politics for the first time in a quarter-century, the 54-year-old Clinton presumably will have a chance to jog more.

When Clinton entered the White House, Mariano recalled, “he used to run on a regular basis, and you don’t see him doing that anymore. He’s not running as often as he wants to.”

White House Press Secretary Jake Siewert said that Clinton “is looking forward to getting back to civil life, where he might have a slightly more regular schedule, be able to exercise a little more regularly, take up running again and get himself in tip-top physical shape again.”