A preventative double mastectomy could be what keeps her healthy and cancer-free.
Angelina Jolie revealed today that she had a preventive double mastectomy after discovering she carried a "faulty" gene that made her highly susceptible to breast cancer. Now, she's encouraging other women to seek out information and consider testing for the same genes-namely, mutations on genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, which have been linked to the development of breast cancer. But how necessary-not to mention affordable-is this?
MORE: What's Your Risk of Cancer?
The 37-year-old Oscar-winning actress wrote an op-ed in today's New York Times announcing her decision to undergo a double mastectomy after losing her mom to ovarian cancer and finding out that Jolie herself had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer due to a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which predisposes her to both diseases.
There's no denying that the numbers surrounding breast cancer are scary: More than 230,000 women are diagnosed in the U.S. alone each year and nearly
Read More »from Should You Be Tested for the Breast Cancer Gene?







