Joe Biden has an aggressive form of Prostate cancer.
-makes notes for next year’s Death Pool-
In all sincerity, I wish him a complete and total recovery.
The article appears somewhat contradictory. On one hand, the cancer appears to have metastasized and a Gleason score of 9 puts it in Grade Group 5, which is the most serious grade. OTOH, they seem to think it can be medically managed. Why do these things always happen to good people, and never to evil ones?
They don’t, its just that when it does happen to good people its so..unfair we take note.
At his age there is no point in treating prostate cancer, the treatment will just speed up his death. This is a sympathy issue that has probably been known for a long time and is new now to distract from recent revalations about congnative issues while he was president. You don’t treat an 82 year old man with dementia for prostate cancer in the hope of a longer, more productive, life.
No point in removing the prostate when it has already spread. Non-surgical management is best in that situation 98% of the time
I’m Gleason 9 myself, but fortunately my lesion was confined to the prostate, so I was offered prostatectomy versus radiation and hormone therapy. I opted for the latter since the outcome from non-surgical treatment was as good or better than for prostatectomy. Two years out for me, no sign of recurrence.
I suspect Biden will get chemo, radiation, and hormone therapy, as that was what I was looking at if my cancer had spread. Tough regimen, I wish him the best.
Maybe Joe will join our prostate cancer survivor thread here at SDMB.
Thank you, Joe, for all you’ve done for our country.
The first part is medically inaccurate and the second part is absurd, unfounded speculation. The whole post is unnecessarily harsh, in my view. My late mother received the very best medical care well into her 90s, and from a public health care system, yet. Surely a former president deserves no less. But the metastasis is likely very bad news. The doctors can and will do everything possible, as they must by the oath they swore, but what is possible may be limited.
Yes, it’s inconceivable that the maximum won’t be done.
The accounts mention that his particular case is ‘hormone receptive,’ which does offer grounds for hope.
With a lot of celebrities, an announcement of aggressive illness is often given a day or so before the person actually dies. The idea seems to be to give the public a chance to realize things are serious.
This situation may be different in that there has been so much media attention (mostly due to Jake Tapper’s new book) about Biden’s cognitive issues. It could be that there is a good chance of years of life, but that the family just wants to cut off all the discussion of “who knew what when about Joe’s mental condition.”
The oath is vaguely summarized by “do no harm” which would take into consideration a person’s age, the intensity of treatment, and the likely outcome.
I’m waiting for the Truth Social post/Presidential decree removing Biden’s health care.
It’s a lot more than that. It also imposes a moral obligation to heal the sick, to exercise compassion, and to maintain confidentiality. A person’s age is certainly relevant when assessing risks and likely outcomes, such as for example ruling out major surgery as too risky, but I utterly reject the morally reprehensible stance of “too old to bother treating”.
Fortunately, although conservatives make a big deal about neglect of the elderly especially in the context of the supposed perils of publicly funded health care, it is absolutely not true and I’ve never seen it; instead, I’ve seen commendable examples of the opposite in the thorough, careful, and compassionate treatment of elderly patients. Biden will certainly get the very best of care and I get really annoyed when anyone implies it should be otherwise because of his age.
The man is quite old, after all. He’s had a long life. You have to die of something.
Trump is 78 and appears healthy as a horse (physically, not mentally).
This will have to be decided by him and his family, but I’m afraid that in his case, palliative or even comfort care may be the best options.
I’m not a doctor, but I am old and I’ve known lots of old guys, and this seems like a singularly uninformed comment. It’s not a question of age (only), but in Biden’s case, it’s also about the aggressiveness of the cancer. With prostate cancer AIUI sometimes it’s very slow-growing and the person, whatever his age, is more likely to die of something else before the cancer gets him. Treatment, i.e., surgery, often leaves a man physically impotent, something no guy – of any age – wants to experience.
As for serious treatments and surgeries in the “elderly,” a dear friend of mine had a heart transplant when he was 70. He lived for 13 more years, and ultimately died of cancer that was unrelated.
Here’s some info at the Mayo Clinic website:
Cancer of any sort sucks, but for that portion of men who don’t do all of their thinking using their reproductive organs, prostate cancer would have no effect at all on mental competence.
No, but chemotherapy certainly does.
Not in itself, until it spreads to the brain, but the treatment sure can. “Chemo brain” is very real, and hormone therapy of any kind can really alter a person’s mentation.
I sure hope he doesn’t need this, which has been heavily advertised 
in recent days, and not just because it has the word “castration” in it.
I don’t know the first thing about hormone treatment and even less within the context of a cancer diagnosis, and I suspect, whether they’d admit it or not, most of the prominent republican leaders don’t either (not in a bad way, I just don’t think most people know much about it). However, I fully expect them to start ripping on him for doing it anyways. Either they’ll use it to reignite trans issues, they’ll bring up how hormone treatment is wrong/bad/illegal and/or they’ll complain that he’s wasting tax payer money on super expensive personal hormone therapy that the average American worker can’t possibly afford.
Oh, and I expect someone, at some point, to make some sort of joke about him becoming a girl.
In any case, if they do give him shit either for his diagnosis or the treatment, I can only hope it peels some cancer survivors/friends/family away from the right since they’re getting insulted too.