Black Voices: News, Culture & Community from Across the Nation
C&P Newswire
Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, his office confirmed Sunday, following medical evaluations prompted by recent urinary symptoms and the discovery of a prostate nodule.
Doctors delivered the diagnosis on Friday, revealing that the cancer has spread to the bone—a serious development that makes treatment more challenging. Still, Biden’s medical team offered a measure of optimism, noting the cancer is hormone-sensitive and can be managed through hormonal therapies that inhibit tumor growth.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management,” Biden’s office said in a statement. “The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
Biden, 82, received a Gleason score of 9, a clinical grading that indicates a highly aggressive form of prostate cancer. When prostate cancer metastasizes—most commonly to the bone—it often becomes more difficult to treat, requiring a combination of hormone therapies, radiation, and sometimes chemotherapy.
Expressions of support for Biden poured in from across the political spectrum.
Former President Donald Trump, who defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 election after Biden withdrew from the race, posted on Truth Social: “Jill and I are saddened by the news about Joe. We wish him strength and a full recovery.”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg praised Biden’s resilience: “President Biden is a man of deep faith and extraordinary resilience. He has faced more than his share of personal loss and health battles. We stand with him.”
Throughout his political career, Biden’s health was closely scrutinized, particularly during his presidency. In June 2024, following a widely criticized debate performance and mounting concerns about his age and cognitive stamina, Biden announced he would not seek reelection. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee but ultimately lost to Trump.
The new diagnosis comes amid recent revelations about Biden’s time in office. The book Original Sin by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson suggests White House aides shielded the public from the full extent of Biden’s physical and cognitive decline during his final year in office.
This is not the first time Biden has faced cancer. In 2023, he underwent successful removal of a basal cell carcinoma from his chest. In 2021, doctors removed a precancerous polyp during a routine colonoscopy.
Cancer has long been a personal issue for Biden. His eldest son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer in 2015. The loss fueled one of Biden’s signature initiatives as president: the “Cancer Moonshot,” a national campaign launched in 2022 aimed at cutting the cancer death rate by 50% over the next quarter century.
At the time, Biden called it “an American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things.”
Now, as he begins his own fight against the disease, Biden finds himself on the other side of the mission he once championed—this time, as a patient.
Read the full article on the original publication
