After diagnosis, Ben Stiller urges men to talk to their doctors, get prostate cancer test

The actor Ben Stiller went public Tuesday with the news that he was diagnosed two years ago with aggressive prostate cancer.

Like other celebrities before him, he used his announcement to bring attention to a health issue. In a blog post, Stiller urged men to go their doctor and discuss the option of a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, which he credits with saving his life.

Stiller says he is cancer-free and wants to use his story to urge more men to stay on top of health issues, including prostate cancer, which is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in men. Stiller talks about how the PSA test has generated controversy over the last few years, but says he was lucky his internist gave him a “baseline” PSA test when he was about 46-years-old.

“Taking the PSA test saved my life. Literally. That’s why I am writing this now,” Stiller said.

“If he had waited, as the American Cancer Society recommends, until I was 50, I would not have known I had a growing tumor until two years after I got treated." If he had followed the US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines, Stiller  wrote that "I would have never gotten tested at all, and not have known I had cancer until it was way too late to treat successfully.”

Despite the fact he had no symptoms, no family history and wasn’t in a high-risk group, Stiller said his doctor discussed the PSA test with him. He got the blood test and when his PSA levels continued to rise over the next year and a half, the internist sent him to a urologist, who did a physical exam, and suggested an MRI. It was then he got the cancer diagnosis.

Stiller is among a group of celebrities, including Tom Hanks and Angelina Jolie, who have been public about their health issues. There was even a so-called “Angelina Jolie effect” when the actress wrote about her decision to under a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of inherited breast cancer, which resulted in a large increase in genetic testing. Hanks has talked about his Type 2 diabetes diagnosis.

And a recent $9 million ad campaign by health insurer Cigna uses celebrities, including Alan Alda and Patrick Dempsy, to call attention to the importance of wellness exams and preventive medicine. Both Alda and Dempsy have personal connections to wellness issues and patient education, as FireceHealthPayer reports.