How a PSA test saved Ben Stiller's life
Just a few months ago, Ben Stiller shocked his fans, movie lovers and the wider world by revealing that, at the tender age of 48, he had a scary brush with prostate cancer.
The Hollywood funnyman is not alone. After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the number 1 cancer among men, affecting over 160,000 people in Stiller’s native USA. And in Australia, there were about 18,000 diagnoses of prostate cancer in 2016, including almost 3,400 deaths.
According to Cancer Australia, in Australia, prostate cancer is actually the most diagnosed cancer of all, beating bowel, breast, melanoma and lung cancer.
Luckily, as Ben Stiller himself will tell you, the news is not all scary. So let’s dive in and take a closer look.
What is prostate cancer?
By the age of 85, 1 in 5 Australian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. About the size of a walnut, the prostate is a gland of the male body involved in the production of semen, located just beneath the bladder.
Men can be alerted to the potential of prostate cancer by frequent urination, pain when urinating, blood in the urine, a weak stream and the feeling that the bladder is not being fully emptied, or more serious symptoms that may indicate advanced disease.
Read More »How a PSA test saved Ben Stiller's life