Al Roker announced on Today that he is battling prostate cancer. He said, "It's a good news-bad news kind of thing. 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."
He added, "It's one of those things that it's a little more common than people realize. I just decided that I wanted to go public with this because one in nine men are gonna be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. But for African American men, that number is one in seven, and is more deadly."
His doctor, Dr. Vincent Laudone, shared information on his prognosis with fans. He said, "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."
Al will have surgery next week in New York City. Watch his announcement below.
