Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson undergoing treatment for prostate cancer

Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson (D-Las Vegas) has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and received cutting-edge outpatient treatment at UCLA this week as the condition has escalated in recent months.

Frierson said he chose to go public about his condition, which was first diagnosed in 2018, in an effort to encourage other men to take seriously the common and treatable but sometimes deadly cancer. The top-ranking Assembly leader has been absent from the Legislature for two days this week but plans to participate remotely in committee hearings as soon as Thursday.

“I just felt compelled to make sure that if there was one person ... that will go get tested when they turn 50, or one person that will follow up after they get a ... PSA (prostate-specific antigen test) that's higher than it should be for the age, then it's well worth it,” he told The Nevada Independent in an interview on Monday. “Just one.”

Frierson, 51, said cancer runs in his family and he is at a higher risk because he’s African American, but he also credits the attentiveness of his Nevada-based doctor for catching the condition in a blood test. He’s been monitoring his PSA levels, the primary screening metric for prostate cancer, and said that in recent months the numbers “got significantly worse.”

Read more: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/assembly-speaker-jason-frierson-undergoing-treatment-for-prostate-cancer