Joe Biden diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer
The former US president is reviewing treatment options for the ‘aggressive’ cancer with his family, his office has said
Former US President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, his office said on Sunday.
The cancer has metastasised to the bone, and he and his family are reviewing treatment options.
Biden was diagnosed on Friday when a prostate nodule was found after he had experienced urinary symptoms, 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,” his office said.
“The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
Biden is the 46th President of the United States and served from 2021 until he handed over to Donald Trump earlier this year. Speculation over his health was a major feature of his time in office – particularly the latter years – and hurt him as he tried to launch his campaign for re-election in the early part of 2024.
After a poor performance in a televised debate against Trump – in which he repeated himself and periodically seemed to forget the point that he was making – he came under concerted pressure from a number of senior Democrat insiders, including actor George Clooney.
Clooney wrote a letter to the New York Times titled “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.” Ultimately, this led to Biden withdrawing from the election race altogether in favour of Kamala Harris, who would go on to lose the contest against Trump in November.
The hiding of the concerns within the Democratic Party about Biden’s health has been the subject of a recent book called Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
In it, insiders talked about how there had been a limit on the number of hours in which Biden had been able to work effectively, and there had been no cabinet meetings after October 2023 as top advisers attempted to control access to him.
“I don’t know any senior Democrats who weren’t paid by Biden who thought he had the stamina to be president for four more years,” Tapper wrote.
On Friday audio of an interview Biden had with former special counsel Robert Hur during a probe into his handling of classified documents was published. In the final report, Hur described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men, typically affecting those aged over 50. It occurs in the walnut-sized prostate gland at the base of the bladder.
Where it is metastatic, it means it has spread to another part of the body – in Biden’s case, the bones.
The hormone treatment mentioned in the statement typically involves using medication to reduce testosterone levels, which can slow the growth of the cancer cells.
