Former US president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said on Sunday. Mr Biden was seen last week by doctors after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule was found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” his office said. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of one to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Mr Biden’s office said his score was nine, suggesting his cancer is among the most aggressive.
When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastasised cancer is much harder to treat than localised cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumours and completely root out the disease.
However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in Mr Biden’s case, they can be susceptible to treatment that deprives the tumours of hormones. Many political leaders sent Mr Biden their wishes for his recovery.
President Donald Trump, a longtime political opponent, posted on social media that he was saddened by the news and “we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery”.
Mr Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, said on social media that she was keeping him in her family’s “hearts and prayers during this time”. “Joe is a fighter – and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership,” Ms Harris wrote.
The health of Mr Biden, 82, was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president. After a calamitous debate performance in June while seeking re-election, Mr Biden abandoned his bid for a second term.
Ms Harris became the nominee and lost to Republican Mr Trump, who returned to the White House after a four-year hiatus.
But, in recent days, Mr Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in the new book, Original Sin, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, that aides had shielded the public from the extent of his decline while serving as president.
In February 2023, Mr Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. And, in November 2021, he had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially pre-cancerous, lesion.
In 2022, Mr Biden made a “cancer moonshot” one of his administration’s priorities with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 25 years.
The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his elder son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015.
