Ben Stiller has penned an essay describing his experience with prostate cancer.
The actor, 50, published the revelation Tuesday on medium.com, relaying the experience of his diagnosis and stating the case for the medical testing which he says saved his life.
Diagnosed in June 2014, the “Zoolander” star described listening to his doctor break the news: “[H]is voice literally faded out 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 cleared of the cancer in September 2014 following a laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, and he credited the controversial prostate-specific antigen for catching in time in his essay.
“Taking the PSA test saved my life. Literally,” Stiller wrote, while noting controversies associated with the test. “The criticism of the test is that depending on how they interpret the data, doctors can send patients for further tests like the MRI and the more invasive biopsy, when not needed.”
In the story, he wrote he was comforted to learn of notable men who beat the disease, such as Robert De Niro, John Kerry, Joe Torre and Mandy Patinkin.
