The actress underwent a similar operation on her chest two years ago.
Angelina Jolie has made her fight against cancer another of the causes that she champions. The actress underwent preventive surgery last week to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes to reduce the possibility of cancer, a disease from which her mother, producer and actress Marcheline Bertrand, died in 2007 at the age of 56. years—his grandmother and his aunt. And, as she did the first time she had surgery two years ago to prevent the onset of cancer by undergoing a double mastectomy—removal of both breasts—she has decided to go public. In an opinion article published on Tuesday in The New York Times, the 39-year-old interpreter explained the process so that "other women at risk know what options there are." According to Jolie, the removal of the ovaries is “less complex than mastectomy”, but it has “more severe” effects, since it means a “forced menopause” for women.
She wanted other women at risk to know what options there are
“Two years ago I wrote about my decision to have a preventative double mastectomy. A simple blood test revealed that she carried a mutation in the BRCA1 gene. He gave me an estimated 87% risk of getting breast cancer and a 50% risk of getting ovarian cancer. I lost my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt to cancer,” she says in the article. And she adds: “I wanted other women at risk to know what options are out there. That's why I promised to follow up with any information that might be helpful, including my upcoming preventative surgery, removal of my ovaries and fallopian tubes. I've been planning this for some time. I have prepared myself physically and emotionally, discussing options with doctors, researching alternative medicine and mapping my hormones.” But two weeks ago she received a call from her doctor who told her that the results of a test she had undergone showed "a number of markers of inflammation that had risen and that could be a sign of cancer discovered later." weather.
“I went through what thousands of women have felt. I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think that I would not live to see my children grow up and face my grandchildren,” she writes Jolie. "I called my husband who was in France and in a few hours by plane he was by my side."
And she continues: “My doctor, with the results of the blood tests, told me: ‘Your CA-125 is normal’. I breathed a sigh of relief. This test measures the amount of the CA-125 protein in the blood, and is used to monitor ovarian cancer. I do it every year because of my family history.” During her surgery it was discovered that she had a benign tumor in one of her ovaries, but no signs of cancer were detected in any of her tissues. She had an estrogen patch implanted to maintain her hormonal balance, and the doctors decided to keep her uterus because she had no family history of cancer in that organ.
Once subjected to the operation, now she Jolie faces the consequences. “Regardless of the hormone replacements I take, I am menopausal. I will not be able to have any more children and I expect some physical changes. But I am calm with what comes; not because it is strong, but because it is part of life. It is not something to be afraid of,” she maintains. And she adds: "My children will never have to say, 'Mom died of ovarian cancer.' The actress is the mother of six children, three of them biological, along with actor Brad Pitt, whom she married in 2014 after nine years of relationship.
Experts consider oophorectomy too aggressive for women who have not reached menopause. With the removal of the ovaries, the risk of the tumor is eliminated, but hormonal changes similar to early menopause are also triggered. The recommendation of the specialists is to wait until the age of 50 and meanwhile subject the ovaries to ultrasound checks every six months.
