Joe Biden Diagnosed With Early Prostate Cancer

A statement released Sunday from the office of former U.S. President Joe Biden revealed that he has been diagnosed with an advanced and aggressive form of prostate cancer, which has metastasized to his bones. Biden is currently evaluating potential treatment plans.

On Friday, the 82-year-old Democrat was diagnosed with the cancer after he experienced increasing urinary symptoms and was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule, 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,” it continued.

Cancer cells are commonly found in the prostates of men of Biden’s age, though in most cases they grow slowly. Hormone therapy is a common treatment that can shrink tumors and slow cancer growth, but is not a cure.

According to the statement, Biden’s cancer was found to have “a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5).”

Prostate cancer that looks “very abnormal” is assigned the highest rating, Grade 5, according to the American Cancer Society. The Gleason Score often indicates the sum of the grades from the two areas in the prostate that make up most of the cancer, but can also be calculated other ways.

Biden left office in January this year as the oldest serving US president in history, and was dogged by questions over his health and age for much of his presidency.

For years he had faced questions, including from Democratic voters, over whether he was too old — lacking in mental acuity or physical endurance — for a job as trying as the presidency.

His response to doubters was a brisk: “Watch me.”

But in July last year he was forced to drop his reelection bid after a disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump in which fears about his decline and cognitive abilities came surging to the fore.

His vice president, Kamala Harris, eventually lost to Trump.

President Joe Biden has consistently asserted that he remained capable of securing re-election. Yet, lingering doubts about how his aides and senior Democratic figures addressed — or possibly overlooked — signs of cognitive decline have only intensified.

Those concerns are being reignited by the forthcoming release of Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, a book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson, slated to hit shelves this Tuesday.

Fuel was added to the fire last week when an audio clip emerged, capturing Biden speaking with noticeable hesitation and struggling to recall pivotal dates and events. The recording has amplified ongoing questions about his mental acuity during his time in office.

Biden’s personal history has been shadowed by repeated tragedy. In 1972, shortly after winning his first Senate seat at age 29, he lost his wife and infant daughter in a car accident. Decades later, in 2015, his son Beau succumbed to brain cancer — a loss Biden has often spoken about as one of the defining heartbreaks of his life.

In terms of health, Biden underwent two operations in 1988 to treat brain aneurysms. More recently, in 2023, he had a basal cell carcinoma removed from his chest, following earlier procedures to eliminate non-melanoma skin cancers.

Afric Today News, New York