Ben Stiller Reveals The PSA Test That Saved His Life From Prostate Cancer

In a Medium post and radio show, Ben Stiller shares his experience with prostate cancer. He was diagnosed in 2014 and, after a successful laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, cured of the cancer in September that same year.

Stiller shares that the test that saved his life was the prostate-specific antigen test, or PSA. The American Cancer Society recommends taking the PSA starting at age 50. However, Stiller was actually under the age of recommendation for the test, and had no actual symptoms of prostate cancer.

He says, "I have no history of prostate cancer in my family and I am not in the high-risk group ... I had no symptoms. What I had ... was a thoughtful internist who felt like I was around the age to start checking my PSA level, and discussed it with me."

According to Stiller, the test is a simple and painless blood test that is not dangerous in and of itself. How it works is that the sample is checked for the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA). If the levels rise sharply over time, or if the value is elevated in the blood, then it could indicate the presence of prostate cancer.

However, this test is not foolproof. The danger here is that depending on how the data is interpreted, doctors may send patients to further tests such as MRI and invasive biopsies when it is actually not needed.

In some cases, "over-treatment" like radiation or surgery can actually lead to negative side effects, such as impotence or incontinence. There are also cases of misdiagnoses; the test can miss cancer that's there or indicate the presence o cancer that isn't there. As such, the American Cancer Society recommends caution with regards to the PSA tests and its results.

So this looks like an issue between drawing the line on how cautious one can be about your health. After all, there's no need to fix what isn't actually broken.