Joe Biden Has ‘Aggressive’ Prostate Cancer
Scary news for the former President.
NYT (“Biden Is Diagnosed With an Aggressive Form of Prostate Cancer“):
Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was diagnosed Friday with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, a spokesman said on Sunday.
The diagnosis came after doctors found a “small nodule” on Mr. Biden’s prostate that required “further evaluation.”
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” the spokesman said in a statement. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
BBC (“Joe Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive’ prostate cancer, his office says“):
Former US president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, a statement from his office said on Sunday.
Biden, 82, was diagnosed on Friday after he saw a doctor last week for urinary symptoms.
The cancer is characterised by a Gleason score of 9 with metastasis to the bone, his office said, meaning it is a more aggressive form of the disease.
Biden and his family are said to be reviewing treatment options, the statement said. The former president’s office added that the cancer is hormone-sensitive, meaning it can likely be managed.
One of course hopes for the best but not great news, especially for a man of his age. It is certainly survivable, though.
UPDATE: As I reflect on the news a bit more, I gather that this was caught rather later than would have been ideal. That both saddens and surprises me. Biden has, for all but four of the last 50-plus years, been either a United States Senator, the Vice President of the United States, or President of the United States. He held the later post for four years, leaving less than three months ago. Surely, he had the best medical care available. How the hell was this not caught early?
Sorry to read this.
Good luck Mister President.
May you have many healthy days ahead.
Trump on Biden’s health issue: “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.”
I give him very grudging credit for not saying something totally crass.
Well that is very unfortunate. Best wishes for him.
To your comment about catching early, the Gleason score is 9. That means it moves faster than most. That may be the reason.
I think the key for his prognosis is whether or not the bone metastases respond to treatment. Even a 9 doesn’t mean the prostate cells will run wild.
I wish him well but damn, his PSA must have been off the charts for years plus and perhaps refused the wonderful “Finger Wave”. Who knows?
@CSK: I’m reasonably sure Trump didn’t write that.
@Kevin: We KNOW Trump didn’t write that.
Indolent, slow moving cancers produce a big window for detection, and this characterizes most prostate cancers. Highly aggressive cancers are fast moving and hard to detect before spreading. Some highly aggressive prostate cancers don’t elevate the PSA. Luckily for him, Johns Hopkins is a leading center for prostate cancer research, and he lives nearby.
@Kevin: @Jax:
Oh, I agree. But at least he hasn’t changed or deleted it.
One doesn’t go looking for things one doesn’t want to find???
Knowing how his opposition behaves, is there any question that had this been discovered while Biden held any of those offices, this diagnosis would have been used to attack him, his party, and his supporters?
Current clinical advice in Australia is to stop routine PSA testing for men once they reach 70. Apparently the harm following false positives, plus the fact most cancers detected were so slow-growing the men affected would die of something else first anyway, outweighed the benefits.
I hope Joe lives to see the end of the Trump regime. It would spare us all having to gag at the Whore of the Oval’s slanders and lies.
Fuck cancer.
My Dad had prostate cancer in his mid-60s but managed to beat it with a combo of surgery and radiation. He also had a couple of melanomas, caught early. He lived another 25 years and died of something else.
All I can say is that I wish Pres. Biden and his family have the best possible outcome, and I trust he has some of the best medical professionals on the planet who are helping make that a reality.
@Mr. Prosser:
You don’t know that, PSA is mostly a function of how enlarged the prostate is, not whether it’s cancerous. I have had really high PSA numbers for about 20 years or so, so I see my urologist once a year, no big deal.
I got curious enough to put “hormone sensitive prostate cancer” into Google, lots of hits.
@Scott F.: According the oncologist CNN interviewed about this yesterday, the aggressive nature of this cancer means it could have appeared and spread rather quickly, in a matter of weeks or months. So, according to her, it’s not necessarily the case that this wasn’t caught relatively early.
Then I heard a different oncologist tell NBC this had to have been developing for 5-10 years.
Quite an analysis gap. Are oncologists like economists?
So who knows. Godspeed, Uncle Joe. 🙁
A friend of mine, a bit younger than Biden, has had a similar diagnosis recently. Unfortunately for him, it has metastasized to the point that there is not a hope for beating it. However the doctor informed him that for many men of his age, there’s such a wide range of effective treatments that there’s a good chance he passes many years from now *with* prostate cancer, not *from* prostate cancer. Best wishes to Uncle Joe.