Washington DC - The Pentagon said Monday that privacy concerns contributed to the secrecy surrounding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's cancer treatment, but that it found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing or obfuscation.

Austin controversially kept President Joe Biden in the dark about his prostate cancer diagnosis for weeks while the commander-in-chief and Congress were not told until days after he was hospitalized on January 1 for complications from his treatment.

"Nothing examined during this review demonstrated any indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate," the Pentagon said in an unclassified summary of a review ordered by Austin's chief of staff into the circumstances surrounding his hospitalization last month.

However, "medical privacy laws prohibited medical providers from candid sharing of medical information with the secretary's staff," who were also "hesitant to pry or share any information that they did learn," the review found.

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The summary also said there was an "absence of an established methodology for making... an unplanned decision" to transfer authorities from the secretary to his deputy, which "may have contributed to the lack of comprehensive information sharing about the situation.

Austin previously apologized for concealing his cancer diagnosis and hospital stay, saying he "did not get this right."