Former President Joe Biden's office announced Sunday that he has been diagnosed with an "aggressive" form of prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones. But it said the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, "which allows for effective management."
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the U.S. after skin cancer, and can often be treated successfully, according to the American Cancer Society.
It has an overall five-year survival rate of 97%, though that number is lower — 37% — in cases where the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.
Dr. Ben Davies, a professor of urology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, told NPR's Morning Edition that Biden "has a very bad version of it, probably the worst version you can get."
The most common grading system for prostate cancer is called the Gleason score, which involves studying tissues under a microscope to assess how quickly the cancer cells can grow (small, closely packed cells get lower grades). Scores range from 6 to 10, with those of 8 or above treated as high-risk cancers.
Biden's office says he has a Gleason score of 9.
While Davies doesn't know the exact extent of Biden's condition, he says there are some good options in front of the former president.
Those include hormonal treatments, like injections, to suppress the testosterone levels in his body so that the cancer "stops growing quite as fast and can almost melt away from the bones."
That could also be paired with chemotherapy, which is typically used only in advanced prostate cancer. A third option is radiation therapy, which Davies says "has been proven to extend life in patients with newly diagnosed metastatic prostate cancer."
"It's not all doom and gloom, to be honest," Davies said. "He can easily live 10 years with this disease."
Biden's office says he is reviewing treatment options with his doctors. Davies says Biden's age, 82, doesn't necessarily limit what's on the table.
"It's not really an age-specific thing," he says. "It's more the physiology, and how he can take the therapies that he's getting."
He did note that certain potential medications could "increase some of the frailty aspects of life." Biden's physical and mental fitness has been the subject of intense scrutiny during and since his time in office, with questions about the former president's age and well-being ultimately forcing him to abandon his 2024 reelection bid.
In his first public comments on Monday, in which he thanked people for their support, Biden wrote that "cancer touches us all."
"Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places," he tweeted, alongside a selfie of the couple and their cat.
How common is prostate cancer?
The American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates there will be about 313,780 new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S. in 2025, and about 35,770 deaths.
In a statement, it said Biden's diagnosis is a "reminder about the tragic impact of prostate cancer in the US, where about one in eight men will be diagnosed over their lifetime."
"Although it is a highly survivable disease when caught in early stages, it is the second leading cause of cancer death in men," it added.
The ACS says while the prostate cancer death rate decreased by about half from 1993 to 2022, its decline has slowed in recent years — likely reflecting a rise in cancers found at a later stage.
Meanwhile, it says, the number of cases diagnosed each year has increased by 3% each year since 2014.
Who's at risk and what can they do about it?
Risk factors for prostate cancer include age, race and family history. It develops more often in Black men and Caribbean men of African ancestry than those of other races and is usually seen after age 50. The ACS says about 6 in 10 prostate cancers are found in men over age 65.
Screening for prostate cancer typically involves a blood test and a digital rectal exam, and guidelines vary for when men should talk to their doctor about it.
The ACS recommends age 50 if they are at average risk, 45 if they are at high risk and 40 if they have more than one first-degree relative who had prostate cancer at an early age.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends men aged 55 to 69 get screened for prostate cancer, and most men older than that should not get screened routinely.
Davies says that's in part because most prostate cancers found at that age are indolent: growing slowly and not causing considerable pain.
"If you screened a population of patients for prostate cancer in their 80s, you would be … adding unwarranted worry to those patients," he said. "So I would talk to your primary care physician about what it means to be screened, the pluses and minuses."
Where does cancer research stand?
Davies says research has allowed for significant advances in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer over the past decade.
"We've made major gains in prostate cancer care in the metastatic space over the past 10 years and really extended life," he says.
Biden himself has long been a champion in the fight against cancer, which was personal for him years before his own diagnosis: His son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015.
As vice president, Biden led the Cancer Moonshot initiative, which brought federal resources together to accelerate progress in cancer research to "eliminate cancer as we know it," aiming to reduce the cancer death rate by at least 50% within 25 years. He relaunched the program as president in 2022, with the goal of "making a decade's worth of progress in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in five years."
The Trump administration, on the other hand, has stifled federal funding for scientific research through funding freezes, rule changes and job cuts — which researchers say is hampering the fight against cancer and other diseases.
A report released last week by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee found that the White House cut cancer research by 31% in the first three months of this year, compared to the same time frame in 2024.
"We will only make headway into prostate cancer care with careful and robust funding of our science institutions, which I'm really hoping will continue," Davies said. "And that will pave the way for future people who get the disease the president has."
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