Reagan to Have Surgery for Cancer on His Nose

WASHINGTON — President Reagan has had a third recurrence of skin cancer and will go to Bethesda Naval Hospital on Friday to have additional tissue removed from his nose, his spokesman announced today.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said tests of a lesion removed Wednesday from the tip of Reagan’s nose indicated the presence of a “basal cell epithelioma” and that a “further excision of tissue” was required. That means doctors will have to dig deeper into Reagan’s nose.

The spokesman said the epithelioma is the same type of skin cancer as the two basal cell carcinomas removed from Reagan’s nose in 1985.

The two types of carcinomas are rarely dangerous and have no relation to Reagan’s earlier bout with colon cancer.

Fitzwater said the President has canceled a weekend trip to Camp David, Md., because of the chance that he might have to remain overnight in the hospital.

Reagan joked about his problem today after speaking to exchange students from Central America.

“Oh, my nose gets laughed at,” he told reporters.

Earlier, addressing a group of anti-abortion activists, Reagan quipped that the bandage on his nose was a “billboard that says . . . stay out of the sun.”

Along with Reagan’s personal physician, Col. John Hutton, two other physicians will be present for the procedure--Adm. William Narva, a congressional physician, and Capt. Theodore Parlett, the chief of dermatology at Bethesda, Fitzwater said.