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 cutting off 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.
President Trump, who has repeatedly bashed Mr. Biden and blames him for most of the country’s problems, was among those who issued supportive statements on Sunday evening.
“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who served with Mr. Biden, said she and her husband were “saddened” to learn of the former president’s diagnosis.
“Joe is a fighter — and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership,” she wrote on social media. “We are hopeful for a full and speedy recovery.”
Since leaving office, Mr. Biden has largely kept a low profile, spending most of his time in Delaware and commuting to Washington to meet with staff to plan his post-presidential life. After Mr. Trump passed the 100-day mark, and ahead of the release of books about his presidency and the 2024 campaign, Mr. Biden participated in interviews to push back against claims that he suffered from mental decline.
“They are wrong,” Mr. Biden said during an interview on “The View.” “There’s nothing to sustain that.”
He also said that he could have defeated Mr. Trump had he not dropped out of the race.
Still, many top Democrats have been forced to reckon with their staunch support of Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign before a disastrous debate last June, in which he appeared disoriented and listless. After dropping out, Mr. Biden endorsed Ms. Harris, who lost to Mr. Trump.
Adding fuel to the fire was the release this weekend of the audio from Mr. Biden’s 2023 interview with Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents. Axios published the full five-hour tape ahead of the Trump administration’s plans to release it this week, and it reveals Mr. Biden’s halting voice and his difficulty providing dates and details.
Mr. Hur ultimately declined to recommend charges against Mr. Biden in part because, he said, a jury would find the president to be a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
In February 2024, when Mr. Biden was still president, his longtime doctor declared him “fit to serve” after he underwent a routine physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Mr. Biden and his family have faced numerous health challenges throughout their lives. In 1988, Mr. Biden battled two brain aneurysms that threatened to end his political career. His son Beau died in 2015 from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
When Mr. Biden was asked in January, shortly before leaving office, whether he would have had the vigor to serve another four years, he said he did not know.
“Who the hell knows? So far, so good,” he said in an interview with USA Today. “But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”
