Former President Jimmy Carter's Cancer Has Stopped Spreading, Doctors Say

"President Carter has received good news from his Winship Cancer Institute doctors," reads a new statement from The Carter Center

Photo: Sam Emerson/Polaris

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Good news for Jimmy Carter.

The 91-year-old former president’s cancer has stopped spreading and is responding well to treatment, according to a statement released Tuesday by The Carter Center.

“President Carter has received good news from his Winship Cancer Institute doctors,” the statement read. “They tell him that recent tests have shown there is no evidence of new malignancy, and his original problem is responding well to treatment. Further tests will continue.”

Carter – who announced in August that he had cancer that had spread to other parts of his body, including his brain – hasn’t let the illness slow him down much.

“He remains active at The Carter Center and just last week spent a day building homes in Memphis with his wife, Rosalynn, for Habitat for Humanity,” a spokesperson for the 39th president tells PEOPLE.

“We haven’t cut back on my schedule yet,” Carter told The Associated Press last week during an interview at the build site in Memphis, where he helped place pre-framed walls, hammered nails into place and sawed boards into smaller pieces. “I know it’s going to come, particularly if my cancer progresses, but we don’t yet know what the result will be from the treatments.”

Now that Carter has received this optimistic health update, he’ll likely be even more active.

After all, his cousin Betty Pope told PEOPLE in August shortly after his cancer announcement, “He told me many years ago that he wanted to die with his boots on, that he did not want to sit in a rocking chair and wait to die of pancreatic cancer like the rest of his family.”

“Don’t be sad for Jimmy,” added his longtime close friend Gerald Rafshoon. “Feel sorry for the doctor and the nurses who have to keep him from getting up and going to work.”