Hawthorn are unsure of when star forward Jarryd Roughead will resume playing after having a skin cancer removed from his lip.

The 28-year-old had an operation on Wednesday to remove a lesion and is awaiting the results of further tests on the skin around the area.

“He had a lesion on his lip that had been there for a while that hadn’t cleared up so he raised the attention of our doctors who sent him off to the skin specialist who called to say he had a melanoma,” said Hawks general manager of football operations Chris Fagan.

“We don’t know when he will be back but what we do know is that there’s still more tests they need to do on skin around the lip and we’ll probably know those results mid to late next week.”

Fagan said if those results were clear it would then be a matter of waiting for the scar to heal before the triple-premiership player could resume playing.

The best case scenario was that he would be back within two to three weeks, said Fagan.

– AAP