Former 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.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” his 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. 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.”
Biden was evaluated after a small nodule was found in the prostate, which necessitated further evaluation, his office said last week.
Prostate cancer is common, second only to skin cancer as the most common cancer affecting males, according to the Cleveland Clinic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for every 100 males, 13 will develop prostate cancer at some point in their lives.
Though all men are at risk for prostate cancer, age is the most common risk factor, the CDC says.
“The older a man is, the greater the chance of getting prostate cancer,” the CDC notes.
Biden is 82 and left office in January as the oldest president in history, although President Trump, who is 78, in January became the oldest person to take the oath of office.
What is a Gleason score?
Gleason scores are a grading system for prostate cancer, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Pathologists grade each tissue sample on a 1 to 5 scale. The lower the grade, the more cancer cells look like normal cells.
Each area of prostate cancer may have a different grade, so pathologists pick the two areas that make up most of the cancer. They add the two areas’ grades to come up with a Gleason score, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Biden had a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5), meaning the largest area of cells was Grade 5 and the next largest area was Grade 5. A score of 9 is the highest means the “cells look very different from healthy cells, which is called poorly differentiated or undifferentiated,” the Cleveland Clinic said.
Biden family history with cancer
Biden’s son, Beau Biden, died of glioblastoma, or brain cancer, in 2015 at age 46. The former president has long maintained that his son’s cancer was at least caused by exposure to burn pits in Iraq.
The former president was also treated for skin cancer two years ago. The White House physician said at the time that Biden had a small skin lesion with cancerous tissue removed from his chest during his physical exam.
Biden’s cancer “moonshot”
The cancer “moonshot” was launched by former President Barack Obama in 2016 and spearheaded by Biden, who was the vice president, after Beau Biden’s death. The initiative was launched with $1.8 billion in federal funds to be spread out over seven years.
Biden relaunched it in 2022, with the White House saying at the time the goal was “ending cancer as we know it today.”
contributed to this report.
