Biden has been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer

WASHINGTON AP Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer his office declared Sunday Biden was seen last week by doctors after urinary features and a prostate nodule was uncovered He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday with the cancer cells having spread to the bone While this represents a more aggressive form of the malady the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management his office reported The President and his family are reviewing healing options with his physicians Prostate cancers are given a amount called a Gleason tally that measures on a scale of to how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells Biden s office declared his number was suggesting his cancer is among the greater part aggressive When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body it often spreads to the bones Metastasized cancer is much harder to treat than localized cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumors and thoroughly root out the disorder However when prostate cancers need hormones to grow as in Biden s scenario they can be susceptible to healing that deprives the tumors of hormones The wellness of Biden was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president After a calamitous debate performance in June while seeking reelection Biden abandoned his bid for a second term Then-Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee and lost to Republican Donald Trump who returned to the White House after a four-year hiatus But in latest days Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in the new book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that aides had shielded the constituents from the extent of his decline while serving as president In February Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma a common form of skin cancer And in November he had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign but potentially pre-cancerous lesion In Biden made a cancer moonshot one of his administration s priorities with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next years The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a complaint that had killed his older son Beau