A former president suddenly revealing an "aggressive" case of prostate cancer that metastasized to the bone is leaving medical doctors shocked and even skeptical.
"Oh, he's had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading," Oncologist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who was a medical expert on former President Joe Biden's COVID Advisory Board, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday, pointing to industry standard prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing.
"That's right it's a little surprising.
"I looked back at the records and there's no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released, that he had a prostate specific antigen.
"Now, it is true that a lot of people recommend not doing a prostate-specific antigen after 70, but President Biden's been in public life a very long time. He was vice president and had a lot of exams under 70.
"So it's a little surprising that they didn't do it. And maybe President Biden decided he didn't want the test. Many men do decide they don't want the PSA, but this is also aggressive."
Biden's cancer is advanced, so Emanuel believes it was readily detectable for years, perhaps.
"When we talk about aggressive part, what we mean is that Gleason score, that score is from two up to 10," he continued to host Joe Scarborough. "And he's a nine. And that means that the cancer doesn't look normal, it looks very abnormal, which is probably why it's in the bone.
"And as you point out, Joe, it's been around for a very long time in President Biden – years."
How many years Biden's cancer has been present is not known, but it is not suddenly an "aggressive" case, Emanuel concluded.
"We don't know, obviously" how many years it has been there, he said, adding, "and it is a little surprising to many of us oncologists that he wasn't diagnosed earlier."
Newsmax oncology expert Dr. David Samadi shared the skepticism that Biden was unaware he had cancer for years.
"It's unfortunate that he has metastasis to bone; this is a poor prognosis; it's a very aggressive cancer; and at this point, surgery and radiation are not good options," Samadi, a New York City-based, board-certified urologist and robotic surgeon specializing in prostate, kidney, and bladder cancer, told Monday's "Wake Up America."
Samadi says "not curable" hormonal treatment would be advisable at this point to "slow down the progression of the disease."
But the news raises the questions about how a former president is suddenly fighting for his life from prostate cancer, which has been detectable and treatable for millions of everyday Americans.
"The bigger question that's coming up is how is it that a president of the United States, being covered with so many doctors and going through very aggressive screening in 2025, shows up with a Gleason-9 with metastases?" Samadi continued.
"And that's very difficult to answer because we don't see this in America like this, especially people like President Biden and many others that are on very extreme surveillance and screening and other things."
Samadi's practice has had past presidents under case, lending credence to his skepticism in Biden's case.
"No, it usually doesn't happen all of a sudden in one year," he said. "This is a kind of disease that, you know, you surveil and you follow the PSA.
"I have few presidents in my practice that have been taken care of for many years. It's not only one doctor is in charge, there's a group of doctors that are all over these kind of like politicians. And you look at the growth of the PSA and the rise of the PSA, and you get digital rectal exam.
"Digital rectal exam detects about 15% of prostate cancers... But if you feel a nodule or firmness, which in President Biden's case, that's the way they detected it. And that's the information that we have. Then they go through biopsy, and they find out that they have cancer.
"But it's very odd to see someone being great a year ago and completely normal with no rise of PSA, no problem, and all of a sudden within a year they would have prostate cancer, Gleason-9 with metastasis.
"So something doesn't make any sense. We need to look at these PSA for the last 10 years or so.
"And I hope I hope this was not missed, or there's more to the story than what it seems like."
Samadi estimates Biden might have had detectable cancer for "5-7 years."
"When someone is diagnosed with Gleason-9, it takes about 5-7 years to metastasize and probably on the average about five years or so to survive.
"So again, you know, nobody knows how long, and we wish the president well, but nobody knows how long he's going to respond to these medications.
"But typically after a few years, they become insensitive to these hormones, and the outcome is not so good. Unfortunately, the prognosis is poor."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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