Onetime President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive type” of prostate cancer, his personal office announced Sunday, and it has metastasized to his bones.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was diagnosed with a new discovery of a prostate nodule after having progressively increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, with a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastatic disease to the bone,” the statement read.
It added, “Although this is a more aggressive type of the disease, the cancer seems to be hormone-sensitive which makes it manageable.”
Biden, 82, and his family “are exploring treatment options with his doctors,” the statement added.
Biden is at his Wilmington, Delaware, home this weekend, according to a source familiar. CNN has asked where the former president is receiving treatment.
It comes just days after a Biden spokesperson revealed the former president was recently tested for a “small nodule” found on his prostate.
Age and health worries shadowed Biden, the country’s oldest president in office, throughout his presidency and came into sharper relief after his stumbling debate appearance against Donald Trump in June.
In February 2024, Biden had a physical at Walter Reed National Military Center with his doctor Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who then stated there were “no new concerns” about the president’s health and that he was “fit for duty.”
Even prior to Biden’s disastrous debate performance that resulted in his withdrawal from the 2024 election three weeks later, a new book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson details how the president had been demonstrating indicators of his decline which were disregarded and rationalized away by aides.
Tapper and Thompson report that Biden’s staff members discussed behind closed doors whether they would need to wheelchair him into his second term and that Biden did not recognize actor George Clooney at a June 2024 fundraiser.
Biden has kept a relatively low profile since departing the White House but has gradually begun to reappear on the public scene. He spoke earlier this month alongside his wife, Jill Biden, on ABC’s “The View,” where he responded to claims he suffered from cognitive decline during his last year in office.
“They are wrong,” Joe Biden said. “There is nothing to sustain that.”
The former first lady added, “The people who wrote those books weren’t in the White House with us, and they didn’t see how hard Joe worked every single day. He’d get up, he’d put in a full day and then at night, I’d be in bed reading my book, and he was still on the phone, reading his briefings, working with staff.”
Biden has a long history of calling for more cancer research, creating the “Cancer Moonshot” program after his son Beau Biden died from brain cancer. The initiative, started when Biden was vice president, was restarted in 2022 with the mission to “end cancer as we know it.”
“We’re mobilizing the entire country effort to reduce American cancer deaths by half by 20, 25 years and increase support for patients and families. I’m sure we can do it. I know we can, but it’s not just personal — it’s what’s possible,” Biden stated last August.