NEW YORK — On Tuesday Ben Stiller revealed he battled prostate cancer in 2014.
In a post written on the website Medium, he wrote: “like every movie or TV show about a guy being told he had cancer… a classic Walter White moment, except I was me, and no one was filming anything at all.”
Stiller was initially diagnosed on Friday, June 13, 2014.
By September 17 he received the news that he was cancer-free.
Stiller is still cancer-free, but he credits the PSA, or prostate-specific antigen test, with saving his life.
Telling his story was his way of sharing his support of the controversial test.
PSA tests have been imprecise, and they can lead to unnecessary treatment of nonlethal cancers.
But PSA is useful for early indicators of prostate cancer, which affects one in six men. The American Cancer Society recommends men discuss the test with their doctors at age 50.
However, if you are at risk of having prostate cancer, they suggest to discussing it sooner.
Stiller himself took the test early, which is what helped him fight cancer.
“But in this imperfect world, I believe the best way to determine a course of action for the most treatable, yet deadly cancer, is to detect it early,” Stiller wrote.
