Former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who since January has served as codirector of the University’s Initiative on Cities, announced Thursday that he is suspending treatment for cancer.

“Today, I, along with my family, after talking with my medical team, have decided to suspend my book tour as well as my cancer treatments,” Menino (Hon.’01) said in a statement. “While I continue to fight this terrible disease, I feel it is time for me to spend more time with my family, grandkids, and friends. The medical team at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital along with those at the Dana-Farber have been amazing in their care and treatment of me and the many other patients and families that suffer from cancer. I am hopeful and optimistic that one day the talented researchers, doctors, and medical professionals in this city will find a cure for this awful disease. Angela and I are grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support and kindness shown to our family and ask that everyone keep us in their thoughts and prayers.”

President Robert A. Brown says Menino has given the people of Boston much to be grateful for. “Tom Menino is an extraordinary man who has made our community and our city a better place in many ways,” Brown says. “Our prayers and thoughts are with Tom and his family.”

Last January, after choosing not to run for a sixth term as mayor, Menino joined the BU faculty as codirector of the Initiative on Cities (IoC), which is affiliated with BU’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The IoC studies the governance and organization of the world’s growing urban areas. Two months later, Menino was diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer that had spread to his liver and lymph nodes. He has been hospitalized for dehydration since last Thursday.

Menino had been on a book tour for his memoir Mayor for a New America, published this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He spoke and signed copies on campus last week before being hospitalized.

Menino received an honorary degree from BU in 2001, and at the 2013 Commencement ceremony he was awarded the Boston University Medallion for his service to the community. At that time, Brown announced that the Boston Scholars Program, which awards merit scholarships to graduates of the city’s public schools, would be renamed the Thomas M. Menino Scholarship Program and its recipients would be called Menino Scholars.