Former US President Joe Biden's prostate cancer has spread further into his bones and turned painful and debilitating, his son Hunter said this week, turning a public health decline into a wake-up call about the screening most American men skip.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight in an interview broadcast on Friday, Hunter Biden said his father's disease had worsened despite treatment. 'The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further,' he said, describing the 83-year-old's condition as painful and hard to watch. It was the family's bluntest update since Biden's last public appearance in June.
A Sharp Turn After a 2025 Diagnosis
Biden's personal office announced the diagnosis in May 2025, describing an aggressive form that had already reached the bone. Doctors had spotted a small nodule after he reported urinary symptoms, and he began radiation and hormone therapy soon after.
Hormone-sensitive disease can be managed for years, yet Hunter's account points to progression. In June, former first lady Jill Biden told NBC's TODAY show that once the cancer moved to the bones it became 'a whole different story', no longer something doctors can simply cure.
How Prostate Cancer Reaches the Bones
Prostate cancer often stays contained, but when it escapes the gland it heads for the skeleton first.
Dr Michael Dabrow, medical director at Paoli Hospital's Cancer Center in Pennsylvania, said bones are by far the most common place the disease travels to, even after solid local treatment.
Tumour cells break away, slip into the bloodstream, and settle in the spine, hips, and ribs, where they grow and weaken the bone. That is what makes advanced cases so painful, and why doctors use targeted radiation on bone tumours to ease discomfort rather than to cure.
The Blood Test Most Men Skip
Here is the part that matters for readers at home. Early prostate cancer usually causes no symptoms at all, which is why the warning often comes too late. Many men avoid the test, put off routine physicals, or assume that feeling healthy means nothing is wrong.
A prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is a simple blood draw, not an exotic procedure, and it can flag trouble long before a man feels anything wrong. The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends that men aged 55 to 69 weigh the test with their doctor and decide together, a conversation many never have.
The task force also warns of real trade-offs, including false alarms and overtreatment, which is why the choice is meant to be shared rather than automatic.
For Black men and those with a family history, that talk should start earlier.
A Common Cancer With a Late Warning
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in American men. The American Cancer Society expects about 333,830 new cases in the US in 2026 and roughly 36,320 deaths, with around one in eight men diagnosed in their lifetime.
Risk climbs with age, and six in 10 cases are found in men 65 and older. Most are caught early through routine screening, before the disease can reach the bone. Caught before it spreads, the disease is often highly treatable, which is what makes a missed test so costly.
Biden's decline is a reminder of what late detection looks like, and of the quiet test that can change the odds.
