Actress Jolie has ovaries removed
Print Edition
Hollywood megastar Angelina Jolie said yesterday that she has had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed over fears of a hereditary form of cancer, following her double mastectomy two years ago.
The actress, who has lost her mother, grandmother and aunt to the disease, said she had the procedure last week after results from a blood test raised fears that she may be in the early stages of cancer.
Jolie’s publicizing of her double mastectomy pushed the issue into the spotlight, sparking a debate about the pros and cons of the procedure as a preventative measure.
Yesterday’s announcement could do the same for ovarian cancer, which is the deadliest of the female reproductive system, according to the American Cancer Society.
Although tests showed she was not in the early stages of cancer, Jolie said she opted for the surgery because of her family history and because she carries a gene mutation that gave her a 50 percent risk of getting ovarian cancer, the same mutation that put her at 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 The New York Times, the same way she announced her double mastectomy two years ago.
“A positive BRCA test does not mean a leap to surgery,” said Jolie, who is married to Brad Pitt with whom she has six children.
Her doctors said she should have the preventive surgery about a decade before the earliest onset of cancer in her female relatives.
“My mother’s ovarian cancer was diagnosed when she was 49. I’m 39.”
Jolie said she had been preparing for the possibility of ovary removal ever since her double mastectomy, but thought she had plenty of time to plan the procedure.
But two weeks ago, she said, she got a call from a doctor who said her blood test results had “a number of inflammatory markers that are elevated, and taken together they could be a sign of early cancer.”
She was told to see a surgeon immediately.
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