President Biden has been diagnosed with aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Sparkchaser · 2025-05-18T21:31:26+00:00

This is not political Former president Biden has been diagnosed with aggressive form of prostate cancer. Given his age and diagnosis, this would seem a death sentence. 🙁 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwywqg7lq1zo

Sparkchaser

Wolf_Barron Prostate cancer treatment has advanced significantly in the last five years.

However, they have stopped testing us Gezzers after 70yo.

real_aurgathor

Wolf_Barron My doctor said that he has never seen a case that went from zero to spreading elsewhere in the body in a year or less and that it would be incredibly unlikely.

It’s notable that by happenstance, you *just* saw your urologist. 😉

In any case, while the majority of prostate cancers are slow moving, that is not always the case.

First, here’s google AI’s take on it:

AI Overview

Yes, prostate cancer can metastasize, meaning it can spread to other parts of the body, in less than 6 months, though it’s not the most common scenario. While prostate cancer is generally slow-growing, aggressive cases or those with advanced stages can spread rapidly.

Elaboration:

Slow Growth:
Prostate cancer is often a slow-growing cancer. Many cases are confined to the prostate gland and require minimal or no treatment.

Time to Metastasis:
While it can take several years for prostate cancer to spread, some cases can metastasize relatively quickly, even within a few months.

Factors Affecting Speed:
Several factors can influence how quickly prostate cancer progresses, including the specific type of cancer, its grade (how abnormal the cells look), and the stage of the cancer.

Advanced Stages:
When prostate cancer reaches stage 4, meaning it has spread to other organs, the prognosis is less favorable.

Metastatic Sites:
Common sites for prostate cancer metastasis include the bones, lymph nodes, and, in rare cases, other organs like the lungs or liver.

Since some people could argue that AI is not good enough as a medical reference, here’s a research article on a highly unusual case, indicating that detecting even a metastasized case can be tricky.

Case report: PSMA PET/CT addresses the correct diagnosis in a patient with metastatic prostate cancer despite negative core biopsies and mpMRI. A diagnostic challenge

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9941543/

Dks01

Wolf_Barron Not outdated thing at all. I deal with this in my work all the time. I have a man in my work who is 80. He has prostate cancer. He is not being treated to cure but given care and quality of life. He will probably live another few years. He will never be cured.

Dks01

real_aurgathor Ah. Paging Dr. Google. Dr. Google to urology.

GrumpyCanadian

Wolf_Barron The contradictions are interesting. A newscast from a different network, just this evening, had a different specialist, and his commentary was dramatically different from what you are saying, and what the other doctor I paraphrased above said.

This guy pointed out that severity is often rated from one to ten; the former president’s case is a 9, he said. He was also clear that this appears to be a very aggressive, fast moving case, and that it could feasibly have been difficult or impossible to detect even a month or so ago. Again, contradicting the other expert, he said that, for some cases, survival can be “five, seven, ten years”. I have no idea whether he was stating that more generally, or in relation to a case like this one, where metastasis is already confirmed.

real_aurgathor

Dks01 Ah. Paging Dr. Google. Dr. Google to urology.

I consider it much more trustworthy than an evidence free, personal anecdote.

And since I fully expected that some people would mention that, additional evidence was provided.

GrumpyCanadian

Dks01 For me, what “management” of the condition entails, and what “care and comfort” mean, would be critically important. If some level of autonomy and quality of life are reasonably likely, I might consider it. If we’re talking about being mostly bed-ridden and on aggressive pain medication, I would give immediate consideration to MAID, and preparing any important family members for that eventuality.

Being a practising Catholic, that may not be something he would want to consider. As a former president, he may just not want to be the one to set that precedent. That, of course, assumes MAID is even legal where he is being treated.

px_eliezer_

Wolf_Barron

In 2018, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) made the following recommendations about prostate cancer screening….
Men who are 70 and older should not be screened for prostate cancer routinely.

https://www.cdc.gov/prostate-cancer/screening/get-screened.html

More discussion on this:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/psa-test/in-depth/prostate-cancer/art-20048087

px_eliezer_

GrumpyCanadian That, of course, assumes MAID is even legal where he is being treated.

MAID as such is a Canadian thing (with fierce controversy as you know).

“Assisted death” or similar language, is legal in many US jurisdictions, but not nearly to the same usage/practice/acceptance as the Canadian MAID.

Astyanax

px_eliezer_ Dwight Eisenhower had a big heart attack in 1955 but won re-election in 1956.

LOL! Ike probably would have won even if he died from it considering he was already running against a virtual corpse of a candidate. 😄

Dks01

px_eliezer_ And unlikely to be considered by a practicing Roman Catholic.

Dks01

GrumpyCanadian For me, what “management” of the condition entails, and what “care and comfort” mean, would be critically important. If some level of autonomy and quality of life are reasonably likely, I might consider it. If we’re talking about being mostly bed-ridden and on aggressive pain medication, I would give immediate consideration to MAID, and preparing any important family members for that eventuality.

Management is not generally the word used, at least in my own experience. Care and comfort is more common. The outcome is the same. 100% chance of dying.

HooRU

I will say that doctors, being humans, are fallible. My previous GP was wrong with several things in his treatment of me. One almost killed me, I was told at the hospital that I almost died, and the first hospital didn’t even test or know it.

The VA just killed a friend of mine for simply refusing him physical therapy, and he was going good up until a couple weeks ago. Long story no need to give his private details, but we are angry.

Many doctors have bias based upon opinion.

A MD is a doctorate. I"ve worked with PhDs that were dead wrong (and I proved them wrong) on 2 occasions, different jobs, different issues. A third took a LOT of convincing for him to realize he was wrong.

I see a strong trend in this forum, the same folks make one cluster of statements, and the other cluster, no matter the issue, try to do Gotchas and Poke Holes. All for the sake of exorcising their anger at society. It’s not productive, not even slightly.

JRB-Ware

real_aurgathor The doctors most likely discovered this a few days ago, or maybe up to a week or two earlier, but much more than that is exceedingly unlikely.

We don’t know that. A person’s health information can be withheld from the public for privacy or other reasons.

Dks01

JRB-Ware The norm is that personal health information is normally withheld from the public due to privacy laws. You are in full control of your health information, always. It does not matter if you are the President of the United States or not.

Dks01

real_aurgathor Having spent all my professional working life in and out of health care environments, I find that experience far more trustworthy than Dr. Google.

JanJ

Sparkchaser

As a survivor of that, I wish him the same success with it as I had!

John_deSouza

px_eliezer_ In 2018, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) made the following recommendations about prostate cancer screening….
Men who are 70 and older should not be screened for prostate cancer routinely.

For an average person that is only a recommendation. For the President of the United States of America that’s another thing all together. If his current doctor talked him out of having the test done that would be very concerning.

FWIW I tend to believe that he was screened and it was detected at some time in the past and they only chose to announce it now. I’ve seen reports of medical professionals suggesting that he’s probably been being treated for it for a while. The alternative is that he was not screened for it for some time which is much more concerning.

Sparkchaser

px_eliezer_ Men who are 70 and older should not be screened for prostate cancer routinely.

I was wondering about that when they didn’t do a PSA on me. I guess I should be more forceful.

Sparkchaser

I’m hearing now he has Stage 9 cancer. 🙄

« Previous Page Next Page »