SPIKE TV Giuliani uses cancer experience to urge men to get a checkup

Millions of men haven't seen a doctor in years, a health foundation says.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Rudolph Giuliani helped start a nationwide campaign this week sponsored by Spike TV -- a cable network aimed at men -- to get 100,000 of them to sign up for physicals by year's end.
"I think men are brought up to not acknowledge that they have pain. There's sort of a macho thing about suggesting you don't feel well," the 59-year-old former New York mayor told The Associated Press. "All that leads to thinking that you're almost immortal, that things aren't going to happen to you. I was like that."
He recovered from his cancer to lead New York through the harrowing months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.
As chairman of Spike TV's "Check Up or Check Out" campaign, he has taped public-service announcements urging men to pay attention to their health, whether it's cancer, heart disease or any other illness.
"When I first found out my tests had come back positive, the news didn't quite sink in. But the very next day, the papers had headlines on their covers that read 'Mayor has cancer' -- that's when it hit me," he says in one spot that will reach 87 million homes through Spike TV starting today. The spots also will appear on other cable stations, including VH1, CMT, Nickelodeon and TV Land.
About 7 million men have not visited a doctor in more than a decade, according to the National Men's Health Foundation.
Giuliani pointed out that for a prostate checkup, only a blood test is needed.
His diagnosis
In 2000, while he was still mayor, he aborted a Senate campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and his marriage to TV personality Donna Hanover began to unravel.
The mayor's cancer treatment involved radioactive seed implantation, followed by external radiation.
Four years later, "I feel terrific," he said.
To keep tabs on his health, he has a semiannual PSA test, meaning Prostate Specific Antigen -- a protein produced by the prostate gland whose presence in the bloodstream is measured to detect cancer.