Biden will be here soon: Former President metastatic prostate cancer

Seems odd to me that his cancer would have progressed this far without them knowing. I would think a PSA test would have been part of his yearly physical. Even aggressive prostate cancer would take years to metastasize to the bones.

I can say from my husband's experience that aggressive prostate cancer does NOT always take years to metastasize to the bones.

I assume he was being regularly screened for PSA. Still his doctors didn't catch cancer before it is metastasized. Bad luck or he wasn't being screened for PSA?

Maybe he was not monitoring it, and maybe he is one of the patients that do not produce high levels of PSA even with aggressive cancer.

Routine PSA screening wasn't the standard recommendation for many years, as a knee-jerk reaction to overtreatment of low-grade PCa 20+ years ago. I've still had smug jerks explaining to me online why it isn't necessary, based probably an outdated example from their intro stats class. 😕

Fortunately, many doctors kept ordering the test anyway, and now the recommendation is starting to shift back after the predictably-disastrous consequences.

Yes, it is frightening indeed ! We tried to be very discreet with my husband's diagnosis but told to couple of very close friends. Both man went to GP to ask for PSA test and one got the order ( he is 50 years old ) and the other (60 years old) was told that it is "not necessary and that number does not mean anything" (???) so he ordered test himself and payed for it in local lab. The second doctor is actually lady in her 40-ies and works in prominent establishment here in the Bay Area (PAMF), so I was flabbergasted.

The USPSTF made a blanket recommendation *against* routine PSA screening in 2012, but then backed off (most of the way) in 2018 once the results started coming in. Unfortunately, many doctors got the first memo but missed the second. 😢

They still recommend against routine PSA screening at age 70 or above, which I think is wrong-headed (since men are living longer now, and there are more treatment options).

We know the President gets a yearly check-up. And pretty much has a personal physician. So how screwed is the rest of (North) America if even he doesn't benefit from early detection? I gotta imagine he is getting regular visits every 3 months or so, in addition to the yearly work-up. Or not apparently.

Tell me about it. I told three different PCPs about my family history and asked for screening in my mid/late forties. They told me not to worry and one of them cracked up. A ccouple of years later I was diagnosed with Gleason 8.

I hope Biden goes for a novel treatment like combination of Proton and Pluvicto or some such novel combination even though the conservative treatment dogma wouldn't be along those lines, it would let him live out his life a bit better. Many sympathies to the Biden family, may God be with them at this tough time.