Biden diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer

Former President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden at Pope Francis' funeral

'It's very treatable, but not curable'

(Image credit: Grzegorz Galazka / Archivio Grzegorz Galazka / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

published 19 May 2025

What happened

Former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with an "aggressive" form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office said Sunday. Biden, 82, received the diagnosis on Friday and he and his family are "reviewing treatment options."

Biden's office said his cancer was given a Gleason score of 9, with 10 being the most malignant. "While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management," the statement said. Once it has metastasized to the bones, "it's very treatable, but not curable," Dr. Matthew Smith of Massachusetts General Brigham Cancer Center told The Associated Press.

Cancer and tragedy have been a "recurring part of Biden's personal and political life," The Washington Post said. He "dedicated much of his later career to cancer research after losing his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015." When launching his 2022 "cancer moonshot" to halve the U.S. cancer death rate over 25 years, Biden said it could be an "American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Thanks to prostate cancer treatments developed in the past few years, "life is measured in years now, not months," University of Washington specialist Dr. Daniel Lin told The New York Times. People with metastatic prostate cancer "can live 5, 7, 10 or more years," said Dr. Judd Moul at Duke University. So an octagenarian like Biden "could hopefully pass away from natural causes and not from prostate cancer."

Explore More

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.