HOLLYWOOD—Angelina Jolie revealed in a New York Times operation article on Tuesday, May 14 that she underwent a double mastectomy operation after learning she carries a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which increases her risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

Jolie wrote, “My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman. 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.”

As well, Jolie made this decision to reassure her six children that she would not die young from cancer, like her own mother did at 56, when Jolie was 37 years old.

“I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a ‘faulty’ gene.”

Jolie’s fiancé Brad Pitt was by her side through the whole three months of treatment which ended in April. Jolie says she would rather tell her story to help other women, than kept silent.

“I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested.”

Mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have been linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. A blood test can determine if a woman is “highly susceptible” to the cancers.

According to WHO, breast cancer kills 458,000 people each year.  It estimates that one in 300 to one in 500 women carry a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation.

By Shine Huang