Earlier today while appearing on The Howard Stern Show, Ben Stiller revealed that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2014.

Following on from his chat with Howard, the much-loved actor published an essay which detailed his diagnosis and offered an insight into his thought process at the time.

"As my new, world-altering doctor spoke about cell cores and Gleason scores, probabilities of survival, incontinence and impotence, why surgery would be good and what kind would make the most sense, his voice literally faded out like every movie or TV show about a guy being told he had cancer," Ben wrote.

"A classic Walter White movement, except I was me, and no one was filming anything at all," he added.

After undergoing a routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test in June 2014, Ben, who married actress Christine Taylor in 2000, was dealt the devastating blow, but insists he is grateful and urges men to get tested.

"Taking the PSA test saved my life. Literally. That's why I am writing this now," he wrote. "If i had waited, as the American Cancer Society recommends, until I was 50 I would not have known I had a growing tumour until two years after I got treated."

"If I had followed the US Preventative Services Task Force guidelines, I would have never gotten tested at all and not have known I had cancer until it was way too late to treat successfully."

Explaining that he immediately sought the advice of Meet the Parents co-star Robert De Niro, who was also diagnosed with the disease, writing: "The first thing I did when I got diagnosed was get on the internet to try to learn. I saw De Niro had had it. I called him right away."

Ben, a father-of-two, underwent a prostatectomy three months later and is now cancer-free.

"As of this writing I am two years cancer free and extremely grateful," the 50-year-old said in a piece which has been published in Medium.