Former President Joe Biden said Tuesday that radiation treatment for his advanced prostate cancer “worked as intended,” offering his most detailed public health update since his son Hunter Biden described the disease as painful and debilitating.
Biden, 83, issued the statement Sept. 8 as part of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, saying his experience had made the annual campaign significantly more personal.
“More than 330,000 American men this year will hear the words we did last spring when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer,” Biden wrote. “By the time we found it, it had already spread to my bones.”
The former president said radiation treatment he underwent last fall had produced the result doctors were seeking.
“My treatment worked as intended,” Biden said, while thanking the doctors, nurses and other medical professionals involved in his care.
Biden did not say that he is cancer-free, nor did he provide a new prognosis or disclose whether additional treatments are planned.
His cancer was already metastatic when it was diagnosed in May 2025, meaning it had spread beyond the prostate to his bones.
At the time, Biden’s office described the disease as an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9, or Grade Group 5, placing it near the top of the grading system used to assess how abnormal and aggressive prostate cancer cells appear.
His office also said the cancer was hormone-sensitive, an important characteristic because it meant doctors had treatment options designed to restrict the hormones that help prostate cancer grow.
Biden subsequently underwent both hormone treatment and radiation therapy.
A spokesperson confirmed in October 2025 that the former president was receiving radiation as part of his treatment plan. People familiar with his care said at the time that he was responding to treatment.
Tuesday’s statement was considerably more encouraging than the health update Hunter Biden provided one month earlier.
During an August interview with BBC Newsnight, Hunter said his father’s cancer had continued to take a serious physical toll.
“The cancer has spread, is metastasized into his bones, and further,” Hunter said. “It’s very painful, and it’s very debilitating in many respects.”
Despite the difficulties, Hunter said his father remained active and determined to continue making public appearances and working on projects important to him.
“He’s still out there. He’s still doing his thing,” Hunter said.
Biden echoed that message Tuesday, saying treatment had allowed him to continue working, including completing his forthcoming presidential memoir.
“Promise Me, America,” Biden’s account of his four years in the White House, is scheduled for publication Nov. 17.
Little, Brown and Company says the 480-page memoir will cover Biden’s presidency, his original decision to seek reelection in 2024 and his eventual decision to withdraw from the race.
Biden also used his health update to encourage other men to discuss prostate-cancer screening with their doctors.
He noted that outcomes are dramatically better when the disease is detected before it spreads.
