Billionaire businessman Warren Buffet, 81, told his shareholders on Tuesday afternoon that he has been diagnosed with stage 1 prostate cancer. Buffet said his doctors told him his condition “is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way.” Buffet, the CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and inspiration for the Buffet Rule bill proposed by President Barack Obama, said he received his diagnosis last Wednesday and he and his doctors have agreed on a daily treatment of radiation, beginning in mid-July, for two months.
Prostate cancer is considered stage 1 if it is located only in the prostate gland. The five-year relative survival rate is nearly 100 percent if the cancer has not spread beyond the prostate at the time of the diagnosis, according to the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society. Radiation alone will reportedly give Buffet an excellent chance of survival without additional therapy. Buffet wrote, “I feel great — as if I were in my normal excellent health — and my energy level is 100 percent.”
