Joe Biden is being treated for an aggressive form of prostate cancer diagnosed earlier this year. Photo / Getty Images
Joe Biden is having radiation therapy to treat an aggressive form of cancer diagnosed earlier this year.
“As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, President Biden is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment,” a spokesman for Biden said.
The former US President, 82, had already been receiving hormone therapy in pill form.
In May, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, after he reported urinary symptoms.
“Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote on social media at the time. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places.”
The new treatment marks a new phase in his therapy and is expected to last five weeks, the spokesman told NBC News.
Biden was dogged by questions about his health during his time in office.
His advanced age meant any sign of frailty – stumbling on steps or muddling words – triggered headlines.
He abandoned his run for re-election last year as donors and party grandees went public with their concerns after his poor performance in a televised debate with Donald Trump.
The cancer diagnosis, at an advanced stage less than a year later, inevitably led to accusations that Biden had been hiding health problems.
Some doctors expressed surprise that such an aggressive cancer, which had spread to his bones, was not detected earlier, particularly when the patient had been a US president, with every medical facility at his disposal.
But others pointed out that men are not routinely screened for prostate cancer over the age of 70.
Donald Trump was among those who suggested foul play.
“I think it is very sad actually. I am surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago,” the US President said at an event at the White House.
After starting treatment, Biden told CNN he felt good.
“The expectation is we’re going to be able to beat this,” he said. “It’s not in any organ, it’s in – my bones are strong, it hadn’t penetrated.”
Biden, the oldest US President in history, has kept a low profile since leaving office.
He is working on a memoir and has occasionally been seen on the Amtrak train between his Delaware home and Washington, DC.
Locals in Wilmington told the Telegraph that Biden’s life had settled into a quiet routine.
They described seeing him visiting familiar haunts, shopping at a chemist, collecting takeaways, and going to church.
Last month, he had treatment for skin cancer. He underwent Mohs surgery to remove a cancerous growth and was spotted with a bandage on his forehead at that time.
Biden also had several non-melanoma skin cancers removed before he became President.
In 2023, he had a lesion taken from his chest which later tested positive for basal cell carcinoma.
His family has backed cancer research initiatives ever since his son, Beau, died from gioblastoma in 2015. Biden claims it was caused by exposure to toxic fumes from military burn pits when his son served in Iraq.
The then Vice-President was put in charge of President Barack Obama’s “Cancer Moonshot” in 2016 and he and Jill later launched a non-profit organisation dedicated to finding a cure.
“When we left office, Jill and I knew we had to keep going through, keep it up,” he said in 2022. “So, we initiated the Biden Cancer Initiative. We focused on turning the moonshot into a movement, not just a shot, a movement.”
Contact Prostate Cancer UK’s specialist nurses on 0800 074 8383 or online via the Live Chat instant messaging service at prostatecanceruk.org
Source: Prostate Cancer UK
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