Former US president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has metastasised to the bone, his office said in a statement on Sunday.
Biden, 82, was diagnosed on Friday after having experienced urinary symptoms, and he and his family are reviewing treatment options with doctors, according to the statement.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” his office said.
US President Donald Trump said he was “saddened” by the news.
“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery,” Trump, who has repeatedly derided Biden for his cognitive abilities and aged demeanour, said on his Truth Social platform.
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Biden, who served as president from 2021 to 2025, abruptly ended his bid for re-election last July, weeks after a halting performance during a debate against Republican candidate Trump prompted panic among his fellow Democrats. Then-vice-president Kamala Harris took over as the party’s nominee but lost in November to Trump.
Biden’s physical health and mental acuity drew intense media scrutiny even before the debate. At the time of his election, Biden was the oldest person to win the presidency.
Trump, 78, broke that record when he defeated Harris last year.
“Joe is a fighter,” former vice-president Harris said in a post on social media.
“I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership. We are hopeful for a full and speedy recovery,” she said.
Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men, with the American Cancer Society reporting one in eight men in the United States are diagnosed with it over their lifetime.
While it is highly treatable if discovered early, it is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, the organisation said.
Hormone therapy is a common treatment that can shrink tumours and slow cancer growth, but is not a cure.
Biden left office in January this year as the oldest serving US president in history. He was dogged by questions, including from Democratic voters, over his health and age for much of his term – and whether he could handle the office’s demands.
His response was a brisk: “Watch me.”
Troubled medical history
Some prominent Democrats have recently acknowledged that it was an error to advance Biden as the nominee in last year’s election, given widespread concerns among voters about his age.
Long before the debate, Reuters/Ipsos polls showed most Americans, including most Democrats, believed Biden was too old to serve a second term.
“It was a mistake for Democrats to not listen to the voters earlier,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday morning, before Biden’s diagnosis was announced.
Biden lost a son, Beau Biden, in 2015 to brain cancer.
In recent days, Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in the new book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that aides had shielded the public from the extent of his decline while serving as president.
In February 2023, Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. And in November 2021, he had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially precancerous lesion.
In 2022, Biden revived an Obama-era programme known as Cancer Moonshot, seeking to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 per cent over the next 25 years.
Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of 1 to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Biden’s score of 9 suggests his cancer is among the most aggressive.
When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastasised cancer is much harder to treat than localised cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumours and completely root out the disease.
However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in Biden’s case, they can be susceptible to treatment that deprives the tumours of hormones.
Biden’s term as president ended on January 20, when Trump was sworn in.
