How do doctors deal with ‘aggressive’ prostate cancer like Joe Biden’s?
What we know about cancer, prognosis and treatment options for Joe Biden
President Joe Biden speaks the first day of the National Democratic Convention at United Center on August 19, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
Brandon Bell/Getty images
Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office announced on Sunday. The 82 -year -old has what is described as an “aggressive form” or cancer that has already spread to his bones. I thought her disease is serious, there are promising treatment options, and Biden could potentially live for years with the diagnosis.
What is a Gleason score and what does Biden mean?
Biden has a Gleason score, a gravity reference classification of prostate cancer, or 9 out of 10, revealed his office. This places it in a category called Gleason Grade Group 5. The numbers represent the proportion of prostate cells that seem malignant instead of normal under a microscope; A Higer number reacts a more serious and faster extension cancer. The Biden score suggests that a large part of its cells looks abnormal and that cancer is relatively high: “It has the most aggressive glazon pattern,” says oncologist Marc B. Garnick is the Bethstor Medicine School.
About support for scientific journalism
If you are enjoying this article, consider support our journalism awarded with Subscription. When buying a subscription, it is helping to guarantee the future of shocking stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape our world today.
In the case of Biden, the cancer has already become metastatic, which means that it has moved beyond its point of origin in the prostate and reached its bones. “Unfortunately, I would say that it is a very serious condition when prostate cancer spreads outside the prostate and goes to distant places such as bone,” says Peter Nelson, vice president of precision oncology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Cancerab Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Consorcium Cancer cancer center. “Essentialy is not a curable cancer.”
How serious is the situation in the details of the propagation of cancer to the bones. “The critical question is: how many bone metastases does it have and what is the anatomical location of metastasis?” Garnick says. “This is a situation in which the devil is in the details.”
What are Biden treatment options?
It is likely that the treatment for the form of Biden cancer, called prostate cancer sensitive to metastatic hormonal, is what is known as double therapy, a combination of two medications that are directed to the production and activity of testosterone. This hormone is key to the situation because it feeds the growth of prostate cancer cells. Its active form, called dihydrotestosterone, interacts with a cell piece called androgen receiver. This receiver then tells the cell that proliferates and grows.
Biden could prescribe a medication such as leprolid (Lupron) or Rectuolix, which turn off the signal in the brain that tells the testicles that do testosterone. In addition, these agents inhibit the androgen receptors of cells to block the action of testosterone.
Drugs, tasks as a combination of injections and pills, can work together to reduce the prostate gland and bone lesions. If Biden responds well to treatment, you have likely to have won chemotherapy of need.
“I would say that it has a probability of more than 90 percent response to treatment and probably has at least several years of response to that therapy,” says Nelson. “The problem is: it is not a cure, and anyway, prostate cancer becomes resistant to that type of therapy.” This treatment can also lead to side effects such as loss or muscle mass and strength, deterioration of bone health and metabolic effects. “Testosterone is a very important hormone for men, so when you suppress it, you can have side effects of thesis,” adds Nelson.
Even so, Biden’s prospects are much more promising than they would have been a decade ago, thanks to the advances in treatment research. “In the past, the median of the survival of someone who occurs with bone metastasis [from] Prostate cancer was two and a half years, “says Garnick.” Now we have patients who live five, 10 and 15 years due to the new modalities available. “
What else can doctors do?
In addition to prescribing hormonal therapy, Biden doctors will probably test the former president’s tumor to see if he has any mutation in certain cancer genes that suggest that specialized treatments were requested.
For example, some prostate cancers end genetically related to other cancers such as breast cancer and ovary, through the presence of genes BRCA1 ORPÍN BRCA2. “Those are genomic abnormalities that may exist that can increase the probability of prostate cancer,” says Garnick. If that is the case of Biden, it could collect specific drugs, such as Poly (ADP-Rribosa) polymerase, or PLP, inhibitors, which are directed to the type of prostate cancer it has.
How bad is prostate cancer in general?
Prostate cancer is among the most common forms of cancer in older men. The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be around 313,780 new diagnoses of the condition and 35,770 deaths attributed to it in the United States in 2025.
“It is not surprising that a man in his 60s has a diagnosis like this,[prostate cancer] It affects one in eight men in the United States, “says Nelson. But he should benefit from this investment in making improvements in cancer understanding and how we can develop better therapies for it.”
Biden’s successor, President Donald Trump, has changed the course since his second term began. Its administration has made significant cuts for funds for cancer research and has eliminated thousands of jobs in the Department of Health and Human Services, including hundreds of employees of the National Health Institutes, the largest financier in the world of cancer research. “My plea is not to turn your back on the tremendous progress that is being done,” says Nelson. “We still have a long way to go, not cure advanced prostate cancer, only although we are extending the life of men. We still need large investments in biomedical research to develop true priests.”
