Biden starts radiation therapy for aggressive form of prostate cancer

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House on November 7, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images/ via CNN Newsource)

Joe Biden has started radiation therapy as part of his treatment for prostate cancer, a spokesperson for the former president told CNN.

“As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, U.S. President Biden is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment,” the spokesperson said.

The news was first reported by NBC News. A spokesperson for the former president, who turns 83 next month, did not give a timeline for the treatment. A source told CNN he began the treatment a few weeks ago.

Biden’s personal office revealed in May that he had been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

“The expectation is we’re going to be able to beat this,” Biden told CNN in his first comments about the diagnosis two weeks after he received it. “It’s not in any organ, it’s in – my bones are strong, it hadn’t penetrated. So, I’m feeling good.”

He added that he started a pill regimen to treat the cancer.

“Prostate cancer is very common,” Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, a urologist and robotic surgeon with Orlando Health and an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine, who is not involved in Biden’s treatment, told CNN in May. “As we get older, most men are going to have little cancer cells in them.”

Prostate cancers can be assigned a grade, known as a Gleason score, based on what the cells look like under a microscope. Biden’s office announced in May a Gleason score of 9, “the most aggressive form of prostate cancer,” Dr. Benjamin Davies, a professor of urologic oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who is also not involved in Biden’s case, told CNN at the time.

Besides the Gleason score, factors like blood prostate-specific antigen levels, imaging tests and biopsy findings are important in determining how the cancer might behave and what treatment options would be best.

Even patients with high-risk prostate cancer “can live a pretty normal life and have a good quality of life, as long as the cancer is treated,” Brahmbhatt said. That treatment is personalized to each patient and might come in several forms, such as hormone therapy, chemotherapy or radiation.

The fact that Biden’s cancer had spread to the bone “is very serious and not curable,” Davies said. However, “There is some good news here in the newer hormonal and chemotherapy therapies (that have come) into this space in the past few years which have shown impressive results and extended the longevity of patients significantly.”

Last month, Biden had Mohs surgery, an operation used to remove skin cancer lesions. In that procedure, thin layers of skin are removed and examined under a microscope until the doctor sees no signs of skin cancer cells. It’s typically used to treat cancerous lesions that have returned after previous treatment, are fast-growing, or are in important areas like the face, hands or genitals.

In 2023 while president, Biden had a lesion removed from his chest, which later tested positive for basal cell carcinoma. At the time, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who served as Biden’s physician in the White House, said “all cancerous tissue was successfully removed” and Biden would continue “dermatological surveillance.”

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer. It’s slow-growing and usually curable.

Kevin Liptak, Fadel Allassan, CNN

CNN’s Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.