Angelina Jolie has a double mastectomy

Angelina Jolie: I had a double mastectomy to reduce my breast cancer
risk


Angelina Jolie has revealed that she “proactively” underwent a double
mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing cancer.








Angelina Jolie has revealed that
she “proactively” underwent a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing
cancer Photo:
AP





By Sam Marsden

6:42AM BST 14 May 2013





The 37-year-old Hollywood actress took the step because she carries a faulty
gene that means she is much more likely to suffer from breast or ovarian cancer,
she wrote in the New York Times.


Jolie, whose mother died aged 56 after fighting cancer for nearly a decade,
said she was speaking out in the hope that other women could benefit from her
experience.


^{Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (Rex)}



She said her “loving and supportive” partner, the actor Brad Pitt, had been
by her side while she underwent three months of operations earlier this year to
remove breast tissue and replace it with implants.


The Oscar-winning actress, who has six children with Pitt, three of them
adopted, made the difficult decision to have surgery after doctors told her that
her faulty gene, known as BRCA1, meant she had an 87 per cent risk of developing
breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer.



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She wrote: “Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive
and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive
double mastectomy.

“I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my
risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.”

Jolie, whose movies include Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mr and Mrs Smith and The
Changeling, said waking up after the major operation to remove the breast tissue
felt like a “scene out of a science-fiction film”.


^{Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie (Rex/Reuters)}

However, she said the final results of surgery to reconstruct breasts with
implants could be “beautiful”. She completed her medical procedures on April 27.


She said: “I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to
have a mastectomy was not easy.

“But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast
cancer have dropped from 87 per cent to under 5 per cent.

“I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to
breast cancer. It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them
uncomfortable.

^{In her role as a UNHCR Special Envoy
Angelina Jolie recently met Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
(EPA)}

“They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy,
the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything
to be with them as long as I can.

“On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that
I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”

Jolie urged other women, in particular those with a family history of breast
or ovarian cancer, to seek medical advice so they could make their own informed
choice about what steps to take.

======================================
Angelina has always been a strong character and I think it is great that she has been open about this and taken away any stigma.

What a very brave and lovely lady and hope she will give help to many others who are cursed with illness and genetic problems.

Angelina Jolie's Aunt Dies Of Breast Cancer


The death comes less than two weeks after the Hollywood
star revealed she had a double mastectomy to avoid breast cancer.


4:19am UK,
Monday 27 May 2013

Jolie revealed earlier this month that she had a double
mastectomy










Angelina Jolie's aunt has died of breast cancer, less than two
weeks after the Hollywood actress had a double mastectomy to avoid the
disease.


Debbie Martin died in a hospital in a San Diego earlier today, her husband
Ron Martin confirmed. She was 61.


Mrs Martin was the younger sister of Jolie's mother, Marcheline Bertrand,
whose own death from cancer in 2007 inspired the surgery that Jolie described in
a May 14 article in the New York Times.


According to her husband, Mrs Martin had the same defective BRCA1 gene that
Jolie does, but did not know it until after her 2004 cancer diagnosis.


He said that had his wife known in advance of her genetic risk "she would
have done exactly what Angelina did".


In her article for the New York Times earlier this month, Jolie wrote: "My
doctors estimated that I had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of
ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.


"Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation.
Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65% risk of getting it, on average.


"Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to
minimise the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double
mastectomy."