James Pickens Jr. is breaking his silence on his cancer diagnosis.
Pickens shared the news after his Grey’s Anatomy character, Dr. Richard Webber, revealed his cancer in the show’s season 22 midseason finale.
“It’s not the kind of news anyone wants to hear, but to be honest, prostate cancer has run through my family. My father had it,” Pickens told Black Health Matters. He had a lot of brothers; several of them had it. I would have been surprised if I hadn’t gotten it.”
“I’ve got a 90-year-old first cousin, who’s still alive, actually; he had it. His son has it. A couple of his brothers had it,” Pickens added. “No one, as far as I know, has succumbed to it.”
Pickens has been proactive about his health because of his family’s history. He’s been getting annual physicals and beginning PSA (prostate-specific antigen)screening since he turned 41.
“My urologist said, ‘Because you were so diligent in that piece of your health, it was to your advantage. We were able to catch it so early because you were being tested.’
During the actor’s annual physical in January, his physicians noticed that his PSA levels were elevated. Pickens was referred to a urologist, who had Pickens undergo an MRI.
“It revealed, as he called it, something suspicious,” Pickens recalled.
Pickens chose to have a radical prostatectomy to remove the tumor, which was performed robotically by two urologists.
“We caught it really early, and so they thought that would be the best route to take,” Pickens said. “I do have a rare variant that you don’t see very often. They wanted to err on the side of caution and keep an eye on it.”
“It was rare enough that they wanted to make sure that they were crossing all the T’s and dotting all their I’s,” he continued. “But they hadn’t seen one that was detected as early as mine.”
Pickens filmed a PSA with Black Health Matters “to raise awareness for the importance of early detection.”
“One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime,” he says in the video. “For Black men, the risk is even higher. Fortunately, prostate cancer is highly treatable, but early detection is the key, and sometimes there are no noticeable symptoms.”