What doctors are saying about former President Biden's cancer diagnosis

President Joe Biden announces prostate cancer diagnosis

Biden’s team shared a ‘Gleason Score’ of nine when announcing the diagnosis, indicating that this is a very aggressive form of cancer. They have also said the cancer has metasticized into the bone. KTVU's Tori Gaines reports.

Former President Joe Biden has announced a prostate cancer diagnosis. This comes just days after his doctors announced that a mass had been found in his prostate gland. KTVU spoke with doctors about the diagnosis and what possible treatment options could look like. 

Biden’s team shared a ‘Gleason Score’ of nine when announcing the diagnosis, indicating that this is a very aggressive form of cancer. They have also said the cancer has metasticized into the bone. 

Dr. Curtiland Deville, professor at Johns Hopkins University and Co-Director, of the JH Sibley Prostate Cancer Multidisciplinary Clinic, gave us more insight into the treatment of this disease.

"The treatments are fairly straightforward when one has metastatic prostate cancer, in that we know hormonal therapy is gonna play a role, essentially suppressing the testosterone, the male hormone testosterone, because prostate cancer is feeding and fueling off of testosterone," Dr. Deville said. "There are many treatments that have been developed for decades, and even in the past decade, increasing treatments that come in the form of a pill or an injection."

The president’s team has announced that his cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which Dr. Deville says is a good sign.

"The main challenge, and I think why we’re hearing this term ‘hormone sensitive’, is that eventually the cancer can become hormone insensitive, or what we call castrate resistant. And that is where you tend to see the progression and spread, and some of the problems that people may be familiar with prostate cancer causing."

Dr. Deville says, however, that there is no way of knowing ahead of time when that cancer could stop being responsive to hormone treatments.  

The standard test to determine if prostate cancer is present is a blood test called a PSA test. This is recommended by doctors in most patients over the age of 50, or younger for those considered high risk. Dr. Deville says some older patients may stop getting this screening as they age. 

Diagnosis brings up new questions

What we don't know:

One question some people now have is: how wasn't this cancer wasn’t caught sooner? Especially if it can be detected by a simple blood test.

We do not have details on whether President Biden was regularly screened with the PSA test, particularly during his time in office.

The president’s diagnosis comes almost ten years to the day after his beloved son Beau Biden died from brain cancer. Beau’s death spurred the President and Dr. Jill Biden to advocate for cancer breakthroughs here in the United States.