Former Sen. Ben Sasse announces he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer and is ‘gonna die’
Then-Sen. Ben Sasse is seen during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on October 13
(CNN) — Former Republican Sen. Ben Sasse announced Tuesday that he’s been diagnosed with “metastasized, stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.”
“Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do,” Sasse, 53, wrote on X.
“I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, ‘Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.’ Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.”
Sasse represented Nebraska in the US Senate from 2015 to 2023 before resigning to serve as the 13th president of the University of Florida. He resigned as university president last year to focus on taking care of his family after his wife was diagnosed with epilepsy.
In the Senate, Sasse was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial in relation to the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.
His frequent criticism of Trump drew the president’s ire; Trump called the Nebraska Republican a “grandstanding, little-respected senator” during a 2022 rally.
“I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight,” Sasse wrote on Tuesday.
“One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.”
Although pancreatic cancer accounts for just about 3% of all new cancer cases in the United States, it’s the third leading cause of cancer deaths and is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer deaths by the end of this decade.
Finding pancreatic cancer early could help increase a patient’s chances of survival, but there currently is no single recommended blood test to find early pancreatic cancers.
“The vast majority of patients who present with pancreatic cancer have advanced disease at the time of their diagnosis. So 80% or more of patients present with advanced disease where we know at the time of their presentation, we’re very unlikely to be able to cure the cancer,” Dr. Brian Wolpin, director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told CNN last year.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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CNN’s Jacqueline Howard contributed to this story.
