Former President Joe Biden’s Cancer Battle: A Complete Timeline

Former President Joe Biden has begun his battle with what his office called an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.

“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” a statement sent from Biden’s personal office to CNN in May 2025, read. “On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.”

The 46th president left office in January 2025, ending a 54-year career in public service that began on his county council in his home state of Delaware. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1973, where he served until 2009, when he was sworn in as Vice President under President Barack Obama.

After eight years as vice president, Biden was elected president in 2020, taking office the following year at age 78 — the oldest for an incoming president in U.S. history. Though he initially decided to run for re-election, he dropped out of the race in 2024 amid public scrutiny around his health.

His diagnosis was met with well wishes from politicians on both sides of the aisle and the former president posted his appreciation for the outpouring of support via X days later.

“Cancer touches us all,” he wrote above a selfie he snapped with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”

Keep scrolling for the full timeline of Biden’s cancer battle.

2014

Biden’s most recent prostate cancer screening before his diagnosis came while he was in his second term as Vice President, a Biden spokesperson confirmed to USA Today on May 20.

Because prostate cancer tends to move extremely slowly, it is not recommended that men over 70 get routine screenings.

2021

Ten months after Biden took office, his personal doctor, Kevin O’Connor, announced that he removed a three-millimeter polyp during a colonoscopy. He said it was “benign, slow-growing, but thought to be a potentially precancerous lesion for which no further action is required at this time.” O’Connor also wrote that he believed the President was fit to continue in office.

2023

O’Connor announced in March 2023 that he had removed a cancerous skin lesion the previous month.

“All cancerous tissue was successfully removed. No further treatment is required,” he wrote. “Basal cell carcinoma lesions do not tend to ‘spread’ or metastasize, as some more serious skin cancers such as melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma are known to do.”

May 2025

Biden’s office announced the former president’s diagnosis in a statement to CNN.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management,” the statement read.