Today Show’s Al Roker Announces ‘Aggressive’ Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

Weatherperson Al Roker has announced that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a month ago, and will be going into surgery to have his prostate removed next week.

“It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” Roker said. “Good news is we caught it early. Not-great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.”

Roker was diagnosed on September 29 by his doctor, Dr. Vincent Laudon.

“Fortunately his cancer appears somewhat limited or confined to the prostate, but because it’s more aggressive, we wanted to treat it, and after discussion regarding all of the different options — surgery, radiation, focal therapy — we settled on removing the prostate,” Laudon said.

Roker has shared that he’s decided to go public with his diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer because he wants to raise awareness for the cancer, which is the second most common kind of cancer in the world and the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related death in men.