Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie announced on Tuesday that she has removed her ovaries and fallopian tubes over fears of a hereditary form of cancer, following her double mastectomy two years ago.
The actress, who lost her mother, grandmother and aunt to cancer, said she had the procedure performed last week after results from a blood test raised her fears that she may be in the early stages of cancer, as she carries a gene mutation that had given her a 50 percent risk of developing ovarian cancer, the same mutation that put her at 87 percent risk of developing breast cancer.
“I did not do this solely because I carry the BRCA1 gene mutation, and I want other women to hear this,” Jolie wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, the same way her double mastectomy was announced two years ago.
“A positive BRCA test does not mean a leap to surgery,” said Jolie.
