Hunter Biden says father’s cancer has spread; doctor says advanced disease can still be treatable
Former President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer has spread to other parts of his body and is causing him pain, his son Hunter Biden said in an interview broadcast Friday, months after the former president completed a round of radiation therapy for the disease.
Hunter Biden grew emotional during the BBC interview while discussing his father’s health, saying the illness has been difficult for the family to watch.
“Cancer is really hard,” Hunter Biden said. “It’s really sad to watch.”
He said the cancer has “spread, metastasized into [Joe Biden’s] bones and further,” describing it as “very painful” and “very debilitating.”
The former president, 83, announced in May 2025 that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. His office said at the time that the cancer appeared to be hormone-sensitive, allowing for effective management.
Dr. John Finnie, a Mercy St. Louis hematology and oncology specialist, said in a Straight Arrow interview that doctors often evaluate prostate cancer risk by tracking PSA levels over time, reviewing MRI findings, taking prostate biopsies and assigning a Gleason score to help determine how aggressive the cancer appears.
Finnie said a newer PSMA PET scan can detect small areas of prostate cancer that might not have been found years ago, including disease in lymph nodes or bones. That more sensitive imaging, he said, can lead some patients to be diagnosed at a more advanced stage than they would have been in the past.
“The PET scan can help us find out the disease stage, and it winds up upstaging a certain percentage of patients,” Finnie said.
Finnie, who was not describing Biden’s medical records, said prostate cancer that has spread to the bones is not automatically untreatable. Current options can include hormone-blocking treatment, oral targeted therapies, radiopharmaceutical treatment such as Pluvicto and focused radiation for painful bone lesions, depending on a patient’s condition.
“It’s very treatable,” Finnie said. “With these current therapies, it’s a lot more treatable than it used to be in years past.”
Finnie said pain from bone metastases may be addressed with systemic therapy or, in selected cases, short-course external beam radiation aimed at one or two painful areas.
Hunter Biden said his father remains the center of the family and continues to be engaged in public life.
“My dad is, to this day, the center of our family,” he said. “He’s the best father, the best husband, the best grandfather.”
He added that Biden remains active despite his illness. “He’s still doing his thing,” Hunter Biden said. “He so believes in this country.”his illness. “He’s still doing his thing,” Hunter Biden said. “He so believes in this country.”