Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was diagnosed on Friday with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office said in a statement on Sunday.
The diagnosis came after Mr. Biden reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to find a “small nodule” on his prostate. Mr. Biden’s cancer is “characterized by a Gleason score of 9” with “metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.
The Gleason score is used to describe how prostate cancers look under a microscope; 9 and 10 are the most aggressive. The cancer is Stage 4, which means it has spread.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” according to the statement from Mr. Biden’s office, which was unsigned. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
Mr. Biden, 82, left office in January as the oldest-serving president in American history. Throughout his presidency, Mr. Biden faced questions about his age and his health, ultimately leading him to abandon his re-election campaign under pressure from his own party.
Prostate cancer experts say that Mr. Biden’s diagnosis is serious, and that once the cancer has spread to the bones — where it tends to go — it cannot be cured. But Dr. Judd Moul, a prostate cancer expert at Duke University, said men whose prostate cancer has spread “can live five, seven, 10 or more years.”
The first line of attack is to cut off the testosterone that feeds prostate cancer. Dr. Moul said that when he started out as a urologist in the 1980s, this was done by removing a man’s testicles. Today, men have a choice of two drugs given by injection that block the testicles from making testosterone or a pill that does the same thing. In addition, men take drugs that block any testosterone that manages to be made despite the drugs that inhibit its production.
Dr. Moul said he sees men Mr. Biden’s age with similar prostate cancer diagnoses on a regular basis. “Survival rates have almost tripled in the last decade,” he said.
On Monday, Mr. Biden posted a picture on social media with his wife, Jill Biden, along with a statement saying: “Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
