Former US president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, and is reviewing treatment options, a statement from his office said Sunday.

On Friday, the 82-year-old Democrat was diagnosed with the cancer after he experienced increasing urinary symptoms and was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule, the statement said.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” it continued.

Cancer cells are commonly found in the prostates of men of Biden’s age, though in most cases they grow slowly. Hormone therapy is a common treatment that can shrink tumors and slow cancer growth, but is not a cure.

According to the statement, Biden’s cancer was found to have “a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5).”

Prostate cancer that looks “very abnormal” is assigned the highest rating, Grade 5, according to the American Cancer Society. The Gleason Score often indicates the sum of the grades from the two areas in the prostate that make up most of the cancer, but can also be calculated other ways.

Biden left office in January this year as the oldest serving US president in history, and was dogged by questions over his health and age for much of his presidency.

For years he had faced questions, including from Democratic voters, over whether he was too old — lacking in mental acuity or physical endurance — for a job as trying as the presidency.

His response to doubters was a brisk: “Watch me.”

But in July last year he was forced to drop his reelection bid after a disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump in which fears about his decline and cognitive abilities came surging to the fore.

His vice president, Kamala Harris, eventually lost to Trump.

Biden maintains that he could have won the election, but questions have long swirled over the responses of staff and key Democrats to evident signs of his decline.

They have flared with the release, set for this Tuesday, of “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by CNN journalist Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios.

Last week a newly published recording of Biden speaking hesitantly and struggling to remember key events and dates fueled renewed debate over his mental capabilities while still in office.

Biden’s life has been marked by personal tragedy. In 1972 his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car crash, days after he had been elected as a US senator at the age of 29.

Biden underwent surgery twice in 1988 for brain aneurysms. In 2023 he had a skin lesion — a basal cell carcinoma — removed from his chest. He had previously had non-melanoma skin cancers removed.

Biden’s son Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.

AFP