Biden has been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer

Washington (AP) – former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, said his office on Sunday.

The finding occurred after the 82 -year -old reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to discover a nodule in their prostate. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, and cancer cells have spread to the bone.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, cancer seems to be sensitive to hormones, allowing effective management,” said his office. “The president and his family are reviewing the treatment options with their doctors.”

Prostate cancers are classified by aggressiveness using what is known as a Gleason score. The scores vary from 6 to 10, with 8, 9 and 10 prostate cancers that behave more aggressively. Biden’s office said his score was 9, suggesting that his cancer is one of the most aggressive.

When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, bones are often spread. Metastasis cancer is much more difficult to treat than localized cancer because it can be difficult for medicines to reach all tumors and completely eliminate the disease.

However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in the case of Biden, they can be susceptible to the treatment that deprives hormone tumors.

The results have improved in recent decades and patients can expect to live with metastatic prostate cancer for four or five years, said Dr. Matthew Smith from the Massachusetts Brigham General Cancer Center.

“It’s very treatable, but not curable,” said Smith. “Most men in this situation would be treated with drugs and would not be advised to undergo surgery or radiotherapy.”

Via News

Many political leaders sent their wishes for recovery to Biden.

President Donald Trump, a political opponent for a long time, published on social networks that he was sad for the news and “we wish Joe a quick and successful recovery.”

The vice president of Biden, Kamala Harris, said on social networks that he kept him in the “hearts and prayers of her family during this time.”

“Joe is a fighter, and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resistance and optimism that has always defined his life and leadership,” Harris wrote.

Former President Barack Obama said his thoughts and prayers were with Biden, his former vice president, praising his hardness. “No one has done more to find innovative treatments for cancer in all its forms that Joe, and I am sure that he will fight against this challenge with its characteristic resolution and grace,” Obama wrote on social networks.

Biden’s health was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president. After a calamito debate performance in June while looking for re -election, Biden left his offer for a second term. Harris became the nominee and lost to Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House after a four -year parenthesis.

But in recent days, Biden rejected concerns about his age despite informing Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book that the assistants had protected the public from the extension of their decline while working as president.

In February 2023, Biden took a skin lesion from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. And in November 2021, they were removed a polyp of his colon that was a benign, but potentially precancer lesion.

In 2022, Biden made a “MoNshot cancer” one of the priorities of his administration with the aim of reducing the cancer mortality rate by half in the next 25 years. The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his eldest son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.

His father, announcing the goal of reducing the cancer mortality rate by half, said that this could be an “American moment to show ourselves and, frankly, to the world that we can do really great things.”

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News Jon Fahey writer in New York contributed to this report.