Doctors discovered cancer last week in Joe Biden after detection of urinary symptoms and prostate nodule.
Former US President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with “aggressive” prostate cancer, his office said in a statement.
Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule was discovered. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, and cancer cells have spread to the bone, a statement released on Sunday said.
“This represents a more aggressive form of disease, but cancer is hormone sensitive and allows for effective management,” his office said.
“The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his doctors,” he added.
Biden’s health, 82, was a major concern among US voters during his time as president, and has become more and more during the 2024 campaign.
After a disastrous debate performance in June 2024, Biden abandoned his second term bid. At the time, President Kamala Harris became a candidate and lost to Donald Trump.
President Trump is a longtime political opponent who has condemned Biden and continues to blame him for war and economic illness, and has posted on social media that he was saddened by the news and “hoping for a quick and successful recovery.”
Biden’s Secretary of Transport Pete Buttigigue called the former president “a man of deep faith and extraordinary resilience.”
Biden, a self-proclaimed Zionist, was heavily criticised at his home and in some quarters overseas for unconditionally supporting Israel in the Hamas-led Gaza War after the October 7 attacks.
Recently, Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in his new book, Original Singh, that while serving as president, that his aides protected the public from the extent of his cognitive decline.
Some prominent Democratic politicians have recently admitted that moving Biden forward as a candidate is a mistake given the growing concern among voters about his age, despite Trump being 78 at the November election.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll shortly before the debate, the majority of Americans, including most Democrats, believed that Biden was too old to serve his second term.
“It was a mistake for Democrats to not listen to voters before,” Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat, told the press at an NBC News Program meeting Sunday morning before Biden’s diagnosis was announced.
Prostate cancer is given a ranking called the Gleason score, measured on a scale of 1-10. Biden’s nine score suggests that his cancer is the most aggressive.
When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastatic cancers are much more difficult to treat than local cancer, as they can reach all tumors and can be difficult to fully root the disease.
Biden lost his son, Beau Biden, to a brain tumor in 2015.