A longtime Grey’s Anatomy star has revealed that he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer.
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While speaking to Black Health Matters, James Pickens Jr., who has appeared in all 22 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, talked about his recent prostate cancer diagnosis.
“It’s not the kind of news anyone wants to hear,” he explained. “But to be honest, prostate cancer has run through my family. My father had it. He had a lot of brothers; several of them had it. I would have been surprised if I hadn’t gotten it.”
Pickens further shared, “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. No one, as far as I know, has succumbed to it.”
The Grey’s Anatomy castmate also said that due ot his family’s history, he started PSA screening for prostate cancer early. “I started getting my annual physical 34 years ago. And I started my PSA testing when I was 41; I’m 73 now. 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.'”
The Grey’s Anatomy Actor’s PSA Levels Started to Increase in 2024, Signaling Potential Prostate Cancer Risk
Pickens then spoke about how his PSA levels began to rise in 2024. However, his doctor wasn’t concerned and said he should come back in a year for his annual exam.
When he returned in 2025, the doctor noticed a slight increase in the levels.
“I went back in January, and when my PSA numbers came back, my primary said, ‘Yeah, you know what? It’s ticked up some more. I want to send you back to the urologist,'” Pickens said. “The urologist looked at him and said, ‘Yeah, there’s something here. Let’s do an MRI,’ which we did, and it revealed, as he called it, something suspicious.”
His doctor scheduled a biopsy and discovered a tumor. A PET scan then showed the cancer had not spread and remained isolated to one quadrant of the actor’s prostate.
“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.”
He further shared, “It was rare enough that they wanted to make sure that they were crossing all the T’s and dotting all their I’s. But they hadn’t seen one that was detected as early as mine.”
The actor went on to share that he wants to remove the stigma men face regarding their health. “Where we are and how we view the medical community, especially as African American men,” he added. “We know the history of that, and how far that goes back in terms of our trepidation about being tested, and getting something as simple as a physical.”