Best Wishes to Former President Biden: A Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

Links to prior posts on prostate cancer trends

May 18, 2025

I just saw the news.

NBC News, 18 May 2025: Former President Joe Biden diagnosed with prostate cancer

Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his personal office announced on Sunday.
"Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms," read a statement released by the president's personal office. "On Friday he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone."
"While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management," the statement continued. "The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians."

This is the diagnosis my late husband Stuart received in August 2017, when he was 55 years old. It was incurable, but treatable.

I will not write more about his particular situation, but about something Stu remarked to me over the years: at the cancer center in White Plains, most of the men with the same diagnosis as Stu were about 20+ years older than he was.

I wish Former President Biden and his family well. It is difficult dealing with metastatic cancer, especially at an advanced age.

Prostate Cancer Links

Since Stuart’s diagnosis, I was involved with fundraising for the Movember Foundation, but I’m also a life actuary, so I’ve looked at the mortality trends — positive, negative, and neutral — for prostate cancer in the U.S.

Here is a selection of those posts.

Mortality with Meep