NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. – Actress Angelina Jolie has announced that she recently had a double mastectomy after learning she was extremely likely to develop breast cancer.
The 37-year-old actress wrote an op-ed piece for Tuesday’s New York Times titled, “My Medical Choice” in which she details her reasoning for coming forward.
Jolie writes that she had the preventive double mastectomy in April. She talks about her mother’s death at the age of 56 as the result of breast cancer. Doctors told Jolie that she had an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer herself. After the procedure, she now only has a five percent of developing it.
Jolie says she came forward to encourage women to be proactive, get gene tested, and to remind them that they have options.
