RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- In the wake of the announcement that former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with "aggressive" prostate cancer, ABC11 spoke with a medical expert about what it means for the 46th President as he weighs treatment options.
On Sunday, Biden's office confirmed the cancer diagnosis, saying it had metastasized to the bone and he was evaluating treatment.
ABC11 spoke with Dr. Arif Kamal, Chief Patient Officer with the American Cancer Society and a practicing oncologist at Duke.
Kamal said there's always cause for concern when it comes to cancer, but the former President has options at his disposal.
"Clearly, cancer is not something any of us wants or celebrates. But at the same time, it sounds like he's in good hands and there's a lot of treatment options available for him," Kamal said.
Kamal pointed out that former President Biden is one of the roughly 300,000 men who will receive a prostate cancer diagnosis this year, constituting roughly a third of all cancer diagnoses in men. He said he expects the former President to ramp up treatment, starting with efforts to reduce testosterone in the body.
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"The fuel source for prostate cancer in men is the testosterone that's in their body," he said. "So the first thing to do is to stop the testosterone from being produced. That's oftentimes done with medications. But there's also something we call treatment intensification. So we start there, and add additional treatments. It could be radiation or other medications as well."
Former President Biden has mostly remained out of the public eye since leaving office. His first public appearance since then came in Chicago last month, and he has since mentioned that his cognitive abilities were okay.
Kamal said it's unlikely that the President's age will impact the course of treatment his doctors choose to pursue.