Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his personal office announced Sunday.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” his personal office said in a statement. “On Friday he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.”
Metastasis means the cancer has spread from its primary site (in Biden’s cancer, the prostate) to other tissue in the body.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” the statement continued. “The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
A spokesperson for Biden’s office did not have any additional comment.
Biden and his family are meeting with doctors and considering “multiple treatment options,” including hormone treatment, according to a source familiar with Biden’s and his family’s thinking.
Biden is at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, the source said, but it is unclear where he will receive treatment.
Biden’s Gleason score of 9 (Group grade 5) means the cancer is likelier than others to grow and spread.
“Gleason 9 is, by definition, aggressive, but you don’t know how bad it is unless you know what the PET scan looks like,” said Dr. Alan Tan, genitourinary section lead at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Tan was not involved with Biden’s case.
Tan said that type of prostate cancer is not rare. “This is the most common thing I see in my clinic,” he said. “This is bread-and-butter genitourinary oncology.”
Prostate cancer experts not involved with Biden’s treatment said the disease most likely is not a death sentence. If he responds well to treatment, he could have the disease controlled for years. Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not die of it.
Tan said an 82-year-old stands “a very good chance of still getting into remission” within as little as six months with treatment. The question, Tan said, is how long the remission would last.
Dr. Chris George, a prostate cancer specialist at Northwestern Medicine who is not involved with Biden’s case, said that if Biden responds to treatment, he could live for years as the treatment keeps the disease in check. (That his cancer is hormone-sensitive suggests he will respond to treatment, experts said.)
President Donald Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump were “saddened to hear about” Biden’s diagnosis.
“We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris said she and former second gentleman Doug Emhoff are keeping the former first couple “in our hearts and prayers.”
“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. We are hopeful for a full and speedy recovery,” Harris wrote on X.
About 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. The cancer is common in older men, and it is the second-leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind lung cancer, according to the cancer society.
A spokesperson for Biden previously disclosed last Tuesday that a “small nodule” was found on Biden’s prostate during a routine physical examination, which “necessitated further evaluation.”
At 82, Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history.
Democrats face a reckoning over whether he should have run for a second term in the first place. Biden’s run — and subsequent withdrawal — stoked deep divisions in the party over whether a campaign at his age helped contribute to Trump’s win in November.
But the party immediately rallied around him after he disclosed the diagnosis, temporarily forgoing its postelection analysis to wish him a full recovery.
“Praying for my friend and former colleague, Joe Biden, after hearing news of his diagnosis,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “Loretta and I will be keeping Joe, the entire Biden family, and the medical professionals treating him in our thoughts during this time. Continue to keep the faith, Joe.”
“I’m praying for President Biden and his family as they take on this challenge. Americans will be with them every step of the way,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said.
Biden has also received messages of support from the Republican members of Congress who were once eager to make his health the centerpiece of the 2024 election.
“I’m sorry to see this news. Cancer is truly awful. My Dad passed away in 2021 with cancer,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said, urging supporters to pray for Biden and his family.
During his presidency, Biden aimed to prevent millions of cancer deaths through the relaunch of his public-private Cancer Moonshot initiative, which funded research into treatments, expanded no-cost screening programs and, according to Biden administration records, resulted in nearly 8 million people being screened for prostate, breast, colorectal, lung, cervical and skin cancer.
At his first event after he left the 2024 presidential race, Biden announced $150 million in new grants to support research and “allow surgeons to provide more successful tumor-removal surgeries for people facing cancer.”
Biden initially began leading the Moonshot program in 2016, as vice president, roughly six months after his eldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer.
In 2021, Biden underwent a colonoscopy at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, during which a “single 3 mm benign-appearing polyp” was identified and removed, the White House physician at the time, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, revealed.
O’Connor said in a letter that the polyp was a “slow-growing, but thought to be precancerous lesion” for which no more action was required. Biden had a similar polyp removed in 2008, he said.
