Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was diagnosed on Friday with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, said his office in a statement on Sunday.
The diagnosis occurred after Mr. Biden reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to find a “small nodule” in his prostate. Mr. Biden’s cancer is “characterized by a 9” Gleason score with “bone metastasis,” said the statement.
The Gleason score is used to describe how prostate cancers are seen under a microscope; 9 and 10 are the most aggressive. Cancer is stage 4, which means that it has spread.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, cancer seems to be sensitive to hormones, which allows effective management,” according to the statement of Mr. Biden’s office, which was not signed. “The president and his family are reviewing the treatment options with their doctors.”
Mr. Biden, 82, left office in January as the oldest president in American history. Through his presidency, Mr. Biden faced questions about his age and health, which finally led him to leave his re -election campaign under the pressure of his own party.
Prostate cancer experts say that Mr. Biden’s diagnosis is serious and that once cancer has spread to the bones, where it tends to go, it cannot be cured. But Dr. Judd Moul, an expert in prostate cancer at Duke University, said that men whose prostate cancer has spread “can live five, seven, 10 or more years.”
The first line of attack is to cut the testosterone that feeds prostate cancer. Dr. Moul said that when he began as a urologist in the 1980s, this was eliminated by a man’s testicles. Today, men have the option of two drugs given by injection that prevent the testicles from creating testosterone or a pill that does the same. In addition, take drugs that block any testosterone that manages despite drugs that inhibit their production.
Dr. Moul said that he sees Mr. Biden’s age with similar diagnoses of prostate cancer on a regular basis. “Survival rates have almost tripled in the last decade,” he said.
President Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Mr. Biden and blames him for most of the country’s problems, was one of those who issued support statements on Sunday night.
“Melania and I was sad to listen to Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,” Trump wrote on social networks. “We extend our warmest and better wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a quick and successful recovery.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who served Mr. Biden, said she and her husband were “sad” upon learning about the former president’s diagnosis.
“Joe is a fighter, and I know that they face this challenge with the same strength, resistance and optimism that has always defined his life and leadership,” he wrote on social networks. “We have hope of a total and fast recovery.”
Since he left the position, Mr. Biden has largely maintained a low profile, spending most of his time in Delaware and traveling to Washington to meet with the staff to plan their post-proud life. After Trump approved the 100 -day brand, and before the release of books about his presidency and the 2024 campaign, Biden participated in interviews to reject the statements that he suffered a mental decline.
“They are wrong,” Biden said during an interview about “La Vista.” “There is nothing to hold that.”
Hey, also that he could have defeated Mr. Trump had not abandoned the race.
Even so, many of the main defenders have been forced to take into account their firm support for the re -election campaign of Mr. Biden before a disastrous debate last June, in which he seemed disoriented and apathetic. After leaving, Biden supported Mrs. Harris, who lost to Mr. Trump.
Add fuel to the fire was the launch this weekend of the 2023 interview of Mr. Biden with Robert K. Hur, the special lawyer who investigated his management of classified documents. Axios published the complete film of five hours before Trump’s administrations plans to launch it this week, and revive the detailed voice of Mr. Biden and its difficulty in providing dates and details.
Mr. Hur finally refused to reverse the charges against Mr. Biden in part because he said, a jury would find that the president is a “comprehensive, well -marked and elderly age man with a bad memory.”
In February 2024, when Mr. Biden was still president, his lifelong doctor declared him “suitable for serving” after he underwent a routine physicist at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Mr. Biden and his family have faced numerous health challenges through their lives. In 1988, Mr. Biden fought against two brain aneurysms that threatened to finish his political career. His son Beau died in 2015 Of glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
When Mr. Biden was asked in January, shortly before leaving office, if he would have had the vigor to turn another four, he said he did not know.
“Who the hell knows? Until now, all good,” he said in an interview with USA Today. “But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”
