Former US President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office said in a statement on Sunday.
Biden, 82, and his family are discussing treatment options with doctors, the statement said.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” his office said.
Most prostate cancer cases are detected at an earlier stage. Of the 236,659 prostate cancer cases diagnosed in 2021, 70% were diagnosed before the cancer had spread beyond the prostate gland, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Biden’s physical health and mental acuity attracted intense scrutiny during his 2021-2025 presidency. He abruptly ended his re-election bid last July, weeks after a poor performance during a debate against Republican Donald Trump caused panic among his Democratic colleagues.
Trump wishes Biden “fast and successful recovery” after cancer diagnosis
President Trump, who has repeatedly berated Biden since taking office in January, expressed sympathy for Biden and his wife Jill in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday.
“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “We extend our warmest and best wishes to [former first lady] Jill Biden and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
Biden’s office said the cancer scored nine out of 10 on the Gleason scale, which is used to determine how aggressive prostate cancer is. Dr. Herbert Lepor, a urologist at NYU Langone, said a score of nine is “very high risk” but added that many men can live “five to 10 years or more” even with metastatic prostate cancer. “There have been many advances in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer in the last decade,” he said.
Prostate cancer expert Dr. Chris George of Northwestern Medicine said prostate cancer is no longer curable once it spreads to the bones, but there are treatments that can control it.
Biden was the oldest candidate for US president when he was elected in 2020. Trump, 78, broke that record when he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris last year. Some prominent Democrats have recently acknowledged that it was a mistake to nominate Biden as a candidate for the 2024 election, given widespread voter concerns about his age. Long before last summer’s debate, Reuters/Ipsos polls showed that a majority of Americans, including most Democrats, thought Biden was too old to run for a second term.
Since leaving office, Biden has kept a low profile and made only a handful of public appearances, including an April speech in which he defended the Social Security Administration against Trump’s planned cuts.
In 2022, Biden revived an Obama-era programme known as Cancer Moonshot, aimed at reducing cancer deaths by at least 50% over the next 25 years.
