The Dark Knight star Colin McFarlane is diagnosed with prostate cancer

Colin McFarlane has revealed he has early stage prostate cancer. 

The actor, 61, who is best known for his role in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, opened up about his diagnosis following testing in December. 

The father-of-one said he is glad he went for regular check for the disease over the past eight years which allowed doctors to catch it early. 

Colin explained to The Mirror that one in four Black men are at risk of the disease, which kills 12,000 men a year and men are two-and-a-half times more likely to get prostate cancer if their father or brother has had it.

The BBC Not Going Out star also encouraged his two brothers to get checked and  one has since discovered he too has prostate cancer.  

Lucky: The actor opened up about his diagnosis following testing in December and said he is glad he went for regular check for the disease over the past eight years which allowed doctors to catch it early

Colin told the publication: ‘My dad is benign but he had an operation in 1999 and he said to me, “oh, I decided not to tell you and your brothers because I didn’t want to worry you”. 

‘He had no awareness of the fact that, actually, it was really important that he told us because there’s a genetic link.’

Colin was told by doctors that his cancer is T1 out of five categories which means it is the earliest stage so he is at a ‘very low risk’ and currently does not need any treatment. 

He said: ‘You think, well, there’s a 70% chance that I’m OK. They said “we will just give you a blood test”, the same blood test that ­highlighted this. “We will now do that as a prostate specific antigen test every three months.” And then once a year, I’ll have an MRI.’,

Colin went on to say how important it is for men to speak about prostate cancer instead of ‘waiting for symptoms’ which can mean the cancer has spread.

He expressed how catching the cancer early allows it to be ‘treatable and curable’. 

Colin lives in Lincoln and London with wife Kate and son Josh. 

Wow: The BBC Not Going Out star also encouraged his two brothers to get checked and the one discovered he to had prostate cancer as well