Former United States (US) President Joe Biden has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The news was announced four months after Trump replaced him in office.
After the shocking revelation, President Trump said he was “surprised” that the public had not been informed about Biden’s diagnosis “a long time ago.”
“Why did it take so long? This takes a long time. It can take years to get to this level of danger,” Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to the advanced stage of Biden’s cancer.
What did Biden’s office say?
Later, Biden’s office clarified that his “last known PSA was in 2014. Prior to Friday, he had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer.”
His cancer had a score of 9 under the Gleason classification system, which grades prostate cancer from 6 to 10—indicating it is among the most aggressive kinds.
While some doctors have expressed doubt that Biden, 82, was not diagnosed earlier given his access to top-tier medical care, others noted that screening is generally not recommended for men of his age and that some cancers do not show up in tests.
Screening for prostate cancer often involves a prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, test, which measures the level of protein produced by the prostate and can indicate potential disease. The test has a high rate of false positives, and the US Preventive Services Task Force does not recommend it for men over 70, since they are more likely to die of other health issues than prostate cancer.
In recent years, however, doctors have increasingly begun screening older patients. President Donald Trump, 78, received a PSA screening as recently as this year, according to medical records released by the White House.
Biden’s age and health were major concerns for voters during his presidency and re-election campaign, which he eventually abandoned following a disastrous debate performance against Trump in June.
Critics have accused him and his team of covering up the extent of his mental and physical decline while in office.
It is pertinent to mention that Biden’s elder son, Beau Biden passed away at the age of 46 in 2015 because of brain cancer.
