Two years after opting for a preventative mastectomy, Angelina Jolie Pitt has had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in an effort to reduce her cancer risk.
The actress and UN envoy revealed she carries a mutation in the BRAC1 gene that made her 87% more likely to develop breast cancer and 50% more likely to develop ovarian cancer, the same disease that took her mother Marcheline Bertrand in 2007.
Writing about her decision in a New York Times article entitled Diary of a Surgery, the 39-year-old mother of six said “It is not easy to make these decisions. But it is possible to take control and tackle head-on any health issue.”
The star, who is married to movie star Brad Pitt revealed: “I am now in menopause. I will not be able to have any more children, and I expect some physical changes.
“But I feel at ease with whatever will come, not because I am strong but because this is a part of life. It is nothing to be feared. I know my children will never have to say, ‘Mom died of ovarian cancer’.”
