He credited an early screening for prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, for his good result. His doctor had ordered the baseline test for Stiller when he was 46, despite the fact that Stiller did not have a family history of the disease and was not officially in a high-risk category. When the PSA numbers rose over two years, the doctor ordered more invasive tests, which identified the cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt came out of the blue for me,\u201d Stiller told Stern. \u201cThe one thing that it does is it just stops everything in your life when you get a diagnosis of cancer because you can’t plan for a movie, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The American Cancer Society recommends men discuss the test with their doctor when they reach 50.<\/p>\n
In his Medium essay, Stiller calls for the test to be administered as early as age 40 if the patient requests it.<\/p>\n
“Taking the PSA test saved my life. Literally. That\u2019s why I am writing this now,” Stiller said in the essay.<\/p>\n
“The bottom line for me: I was lucky enough to have a doctor who gave me what they call a ‘baseline’ PSA test when I was about 46. I have no history of prostate cancer in my family and I am not in the high-risk group, being neither \u200a\u2014\u200a to the best of my knowledge\u200a \u2014\u200a of African or Scandinavian ancestry. I had no symptoms.<\/p>\n
“What I had \u200a\u2014 \u200aand I\u2019m healthy today because of it\u200a \u2014 \u200awas a thoughtful internist who felt like I was around the age to start checking my PSA level, and discussed it with me.”<\/p>\n
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