The Today Show co-hosts Matt Lauer and Al Roker are around the age where men should start undergoing regular prostate exams. During Thursday’s episode of the daily morning show on NBC, Lauer and Roker decided to do just that, on live television.

“We're trying to raise awareness, trying to get men of a certain age to go to the doctors to raise some of these issues,” Lauer explained. “A lot of people have fears or concerns. We're going to show you just how quick this procedure is.”

According to the American Cancer Society, 238,590 new prostate cancer diagnoses are estimated for 2013 in the United States, making it the most common type of cancer in American men. Approximately one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lifetime, one in 36 men will die as a result. It is considered the second-leading cause of cancer-related death among men in the United States.

The MD Anderson Cancer Center encourages men to start talking to their doctors about the benefits of a prostate exam at the age of 40. Prostate cancer screenings are performed using two methods. A digital rectal exam (DRE) is where a doctor or nurse places a finger inside of the patient’s rectum to determine the size of the prostate and check for lumps. A prostate specific antigen (PSA) test measures the level of PSA in the patient’s blood, which is said to be high in men with prostate cancer.

With the help of Dr. David Samadi from the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, where the tests were performed, both television anchors were checked for prostate cancer in less than 35 seconds. Although the pair admitted the test wasn’t the most comfortable feeling, they said the half minute of mild distress is well-worth the potentially life-saving examination.

"Your PSA has been quite steady, which I'm very happy about," Dr. Samadi told Lauer, who has been his patient for the past five years. "Just for the numbers, it started around 0.7, and now it's around 0.9, so it hasn't moved, and that's what we pay attention to."

This isn’t the first time a Today show host has thought outside the box to shine light on an important issue. In 2000, just two years after her husband passed away due to his battle with colon cancer, Katie Couric received a televised colonoscopy. She also underwent a televised mammogram in 2005.