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Former President Joe Biden, 83, Says Cancer Is ‘Slowing Me Down’

The illness will limit his book tour, but he says treatment is going well

4-minute read

Donna Freydkin,

AARP

Published November 09, 2026

Former President Joe Biden in a navy suit and patterned tie, looking to the side at an event.

President Joe Biden, seen here on Sept. 11, 2026, has provided an update on his cancer treatment. “Some days are better than others,” he wrote on X.

Barry Williams - Pool/Getty Images

Key takeaways

Former President Biden’s prostate cancer had spread to his bones when his diagnosis was announced in 2025.
About 6 in 10 prostate cancers are diagnosed in men 65 and older, according to the American Cancer Society.
Early prostate cancer usually causes no symptoms. Screening decisions depend on factors including age, overall health and personal risk.

Former President Joseph R. Biden, 83, says prostate cancer will keep him from making as many appearances as he had planned to promote his upcoming memoir, Promise Me, America, out Nov. 17.

“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down,” Biden wrote in a Nov. 8 post on X, adding that his doctors “continue to be encouraged” by how he’s responding to treatment.

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Biden’s office announced his diagnosis on May 18, 2025, after increasing urinary symptoms led doctors to investigate a nodule in his prostate. The cancer had already spread to his bones. His Gleason score, which describes how aggressive prostate cancer appears under a microscope, was nine on a scale of two to 10, indicating a high-grade cancer likely to grow and spread quickly.

What it means when prostate cancer spreads

When prostate cancer travels to other parts of the body, such as the bones, it is called metastatic prostate cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, most cancers at this stage cannot be cured, but treatment can help control the disease and improve quality of life.

Doctors often combine treatments. Hormone therapy may be paired with chemotherapy or radiation; immunotherapy (using a person's immune system to locate and fight cancer cells) is an option for some patients whose cancer continues to grow or returns after treatment. Radiation and other treatments can also help relieve pain caused by cancer in the bones. The approach depends on how far the cancer has spread, how it responds to treatment and a person’s overall health.

Symptoms and screening: What to know

Early prostate cancer usually causes no symptoms, but possible warning signs include trouble urinating or blood in the urine or semen. More advanced cancer can cause bone pain, unexplained weight loss and severe tiredness.

A prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test measures a protein made by the prostate. Higher levels can signal cancer, but an enlarged or inflamed prostate can also raise them. Doctors use follow-up tests to determine the cause.

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Screening can also find prostate cancers that grow so slowly they would never cause symptoms or shorten a man’s life. For those cancers, doctors may recommend regular monitoring rather than treatment that could cause side effects without helping him live longer.

Prostate cancer becomes more common with age. About 6 in 10 cases are diagnosed in men 65 and older, and the average age at diagnosis is about 68, according to the American Cancer Society’s latest statistics.

In the United States, about 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, according to the ACS. Black men have a higher risk. For men diagnosed when the disease is confined to the prostate or has spread only nearby, the five-year relative survival rate is greater than 99 percent, according to the ACS.

Some prostate cancers grow so slowly that doctors recommend monitoring them rather than starting treatment right away. The challenge is identifying which cancers pose a threat.

“We do want to catch those aggressive cases as early as possible and get those people cured,” Dr. Mark Pomerantz, an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, told AARP.

Screening decisions can get more complicated after 70. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against routine PSA screening for men 70 and older because the potential harms outweigh the expected benefits. Screening can lead to biopsies and treatment for slow-growing cancers that would never threaten a man’s life. Treatment can cause urinary leakage and erectile dysfunction, while any benefit from finding the cancer early may take years to emerge.

“All men with a life expectancy of over 10 years should be discussing PSA screening with their doctor,” regardless of their age, Pomerantz said.

Donna Freydkin has spent 10-plus years interviewing celebrities for major publications, and has written for a variety of outlets such as USA Today, Allure, Yahoo! and CNN covering topics such as films, family and favorite meals.

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