Image Credit: Samuel Corum / Stringer / Getty Images 
Joe Biden is now receiving radiation and hormone treatment for cancer, a spokesman for the former President has confirmed.
Biden’s diagnosis of prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9 and metastasis to the bone was revealed in May.
Although the diagnosis was serious, the office of the former President said the cancer was hormone-sensitive and could be managed. Biden’s family said they were reviewing all available options.
Now, it seems, the former President has elected to proceed with therapy.
“As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, President Biden is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment,” Biden aide Kelly Scully said Saturday.
Biden has been treated for cancer before. Before entering the White House, he had skin cancer spots removed by surgery, in 2023 he had a lesion removed from his chest.
Other members of the Biden family have also had run-ins with cancer.
Former First Lady Jill Biden had a basal cell carcinoma removed from above her right eye, and a second one removed from the left side of her chest in early 2023.
Beau Biden, the former President’s son, died in 2015 from brain cancer.
Many have questioned whether the former President had prostate cancer while he was still in the Oval Office and, just as importantly, whether this was known.
“It is inconceivable that this was not being followed before he left the Presidency,” said Dr. Howie Forman, a professor at Yale, when Biden’s diagnosis was first announced.
Forman noted the test for prostate-specific antigen [PSA] would have shown Biden had cancer “for some time before this diagnosis.”
In early 2024, while Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, he was deemed “fit to serve” by his physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, after a routine evaluation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Dr. Forman noted that Biden “must have had a PSA test numerous times before” and described the late-stage diagnosis as “odd.”
Forman also questioned whether Biden had been through screening in the last 12 years and if he “had a normal PSA prior to [age] 70?”
“It’s just so odd to discover this with bone [metastasis] in a man of his stature and [with his] access to care,” Forman added.
Urologist Dr. David Shusterman said it is “unheard of” for someone with Biden’s stage of cancer to not know about it beforehand.
“It’s very unlikely that someone could get annual checkups and not notice,” he said, especially someone who “had state-of-the-art care.”
“’It’s unusual to hear that someone has prostate cancer when they’re annually being followed up,” Shusterman said.
“The fact that we find it at a Gleason 9 is unheard of.”
Shusterman said he believes Biden had prostate cancer “for a long time,” probably several years.
v
