Biden undergoes annual physical as his age remains campaign issue

President Joe Biden is at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for his annual physical, the White House has said.

Mr Biden travelled to the Navy-operated facility in Bethesda, Maryland on Wednesday, departing the White House by helicopter at 9.06 am and landing at the hospital’s helipad nine minutes later.

A White House official said Mr Biden’s visit to the hospital was “for his routine annual physical” and promised that his physician would release a written summary of the findings afterwards.

Mr Biden, 81, is the oldest person to ever serve as America’s chief executive.

A lifelong teetotaler and nonsmoker, he is known to exercise regularly, but he has had some health issues in recent years, including spinal arthritis that has caused him to exhibit a stiff gait and skin cancer lesions that were removed from his chest last March.

In a memorandum released by the press office at the time, Physician to the President Dr Kevin O’Connor said a biopsy “confirmed that the small lesion” removed from Mr Biden “was basal cell carcinoma”.

All cancerous tissue was successfully removed.

The area around the biopsy site was treated presumptively with electrodesiccation and curettage at the time of biopsy.

“No further treatment is required,” he said.

Dr O’Connor added that the site of the biopsy has “healed nicely” and said the president “will continue dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive healthcare”.

The president’s age and a number of high-profile verbal slips and gaffes have led many voters to express concern about whether he is physically and mentally up to the job.

But after his last physical on 16 February last year, Dr O’Connor — a former US Army doctor who has treated Mr Biden since his time as