What a Prostate Cancer Diagnosis Like Biden’s Means for Patients

Prostate cancer experts say that former President Joseph R. Biden’s diagnosis is serious. Announced on Sunday by his office, the cancer has spread to his bones. And it is Stage 4, the most deadly of stages for the illness. It cannot be cured.

But the good news, prostate cancer specialists said, is that recent advances in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer — based in large part on research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department — have changed what was evvel an exceedingly grim picture for men with advanced disease.

“Life is measured in years now, not months,” said Dr. Daniel W. Lin, a prostate cancer specialist at the University of Washington.

Dr. Judd Moul, a prostate cancer expert at Duke University, said that men whose prostate cancer has spread to their bones, “can live 5, 7, 10 or more years” with current treatments. A man like Mr. Biden, in his 80s, “could hopefully pass away from natural causes and not from prostate cancer,” he said.

Mr. Biden’s office said the former president had urinary symptoms, which led him to seek medical attention.

But, Dr. Lin said, “I highly doubt his symptoms were due to cancer.”

Instead, he said, the most likely scenario is that a doctor did an exam, noticed a nodule on Mr. Biden’s prostate and did a blood test, the prostate-specific antigen test. The PSA test looks for a protein released by cancer cells, and can be followed up by an M.R.I. The blood test and the M.R.I. would have pointed to the cancer.