US President Barack Obama received 12 stitches in his lip after being struck by an errant elbow during a holiday basketball game with friends and family Friday morning, the White House said in a statement.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the surgery was done at the White House. Doctors hoped to leave a lesser scar by using more, smaller stitches than normal, dpa reported.
Obama was playing a 5-on-5 game in the morning at local military base Fort McNair with Reggie Love, an advisor and former university basketball player, and members of his family who flew into Washington for the US Thanksgiving holiday.
The White House did not say whose elbow struck the president.
Obama, an avid basketball player, still plays regularly and had a court installed at the White House after he took office in January 2009.