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Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with “aggressive” prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, after experiencing urinary symptoms, his private office said on Sunday.
Prostate cancer is the second-deadliest form of cancer in men in the US, after lung cancer, and affects the gland that sits beneath the bladder and in front of the rectum in males. About one in eight men will get prostate cancer, but most will not die of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.
It is a somewhat paradoxical disease: when caught early, it is often curable — but symptoms typically don’t appear until it’s more developed and harder to treat.
When found at more advanced stages, treatment options are more limited, and at stage 4, which is where the cancer has spread from the prostate to other parts of the body, “treatment won’t cure your cancer, but it can help keep it under control and manage any symptoms,” Chiara De Biase, director of health services, Equity, and Improvement at the charity Prostate Cancer UK, told Business Insider.
Biden’s team has not shared what stage of cancer he has or his prognosis, but said it was “hormone sensitive,” meaning it uses hormones to grow and has the potential to be managed with drugs that block hormones in the body.
Easy to miss symptoms of prostate cancer include changes in how a person pees
Changes in urinary habits tend to be the earliest sign that a person has prostate cancer. If the tumor grows near and presses against the tube we urinate through (the urethra) it can change the way the person pees. But early prostate cancer usually grows in a different part of the prostate away from the urethra, so it doesn’t tend to cause symptoms until much later.
Changes in how a person with prostate cancer pees can include:
- Difficulty starting to pee or emptying your bladder
- A weak flow when you pee
- A feeling that your bladder hasn’t emptied properly
- Dribbling urine after you finish urinating
- Needing to pee more often than usual, especially at night
- A sudden need to pee or sometimes leaking pee before you get to the toilet.
It’s important to note that these changes can also be a sign of a common non-cancerous condition called enlarged prostate.
If prostate cancer spreads, other symptoms can include:
- Back pain, hip pain or pelvis pain
- Problems getting or keeping an erection
- Blood in the urine or semen
- Unexplained weight loss
- Weakness or numbness in the legs or feet, or even loss of bladder or bowel control, from cancer in the spine pressing on the spinal cord
Men are diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 67, on average
Biden is 82. The ACS recommends that men with an average risk of prostate cancer consider getting screened at age 50. The test involves taking a blood sample and checking for higher-than-normal prostate-specific antigen levels.
“It’s so important for men to know their own risk, and what they can choose to do about it,” De Biase said.
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