Al Roker reveals he has prostate cancer, will undergo surgery

Roker said he wanted to publicly reveal his diagnosis to spotlight the number of men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“If you detect it early, this is a really treatable disease. And it’s why I wanted to take you along my journey, so we can all learn together how to educate and protect the men in our lives,” Roker said during the show. “I don’t want people thinking, ‘Oh, poor Al,’ you know, because I’m gonna be OK.”

Roker said he will undergo surgery next week at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Dr. Vincent Laudone, who is scheduled to perform the surgery, discussed Roker’s diagnosis on the show.

“Fortunately his cancer appears somewhat limited or confined to the prostate, but because it’s more aggressive, we wanted to treat it,” Laudone said. “We settled on removing the prostate.”