(WAND)- Al Roker announced he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and will have to take some time off to undergo removal surgery.
Roker 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."
Dr. Vincent Laudone of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City will perform Al's procedure next week.
"We'll just wait and see, and hopefully in about two weeks, I'll be back (on TODAY)," Al said.
According to the TODAY show, Al's prostate cancer detection began with a routine physical when his doctor discovered he had an elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in his bloodwork. That led to him getting an MRI, followed by a biopsy to confirm his diagnosis.
With his recent diagnosis, Al hopes to raise awareness of the importance of getting tested and early detection.
"The problem for African American men is that any number of reasons from genetics to access to health care, and so we want to make it available and let people know they got to get checked," Al said.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends all men ages 55-69 talk to their doctors about being screened.
