Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A ) (NYSE: BRK-B ), announced today that he has stage 1 prostate cancer. (Read Buffett's letter here).
Buffett, 81, describes his condition as "not remotely life threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way." Buffett's doctors discovered signs of the condition during a routine checkup; they have decided on a 60-day treatment program of daily radiation.
Buffett says that while the treatments will restrict his travel, they will not otherwise affect his daily routine. Presumably, this means that Buffett still intends to participate in Berkshire's upcoming annual meeting, which is attended by tens of thousands and widely lauded as "Woodstock for Capitalists." The jarring news sent shares of Berkshire down around 2% in after-hours trading.
Motley Fool Share Advisor Investment Analyst Dean Morel says…
Prostate cancer is seldom a killer in old men and is very common. The saying goes, you die with prostate cancer, not from it.
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This article was originally written by Joe Magyer, and published on fool.com. It has been updated.