Angelina Jolie (Photo : Reuters)
Angelina Jolie recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "Angelina Jolie Pitt: Diary of a Surgery" and she talked about the removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes as she wanted to evade the possibility of having an ovarian cancer.
According to Vox, analysts and experts are saying that her recent contribution is actually very helpful to all patients who read her piece. In her piece she wrote that a simple blood test made her knowledgeable that she had a mutation in the BRCA1 gene and it can contribute to both breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Due to this, she had a double mastectomy back in 2013 and had an oophorectomy just this month.
Jolie did not encourage women to do the same thing but she talked about the cost, the risks, the benefits and everything else that one needs to know about the said surgeries she has gone through.
There are so many things that Jolie shared in her piece including the fact that she studied her family's medical history revealing that her grandmother, her mother, and her aunt all died due to cancer and that leads to her conclusion that there is a great percentage that she would develop the same disease.
She also explored what other option she could have instead of going through the surgeries and talked to her doctor regularly. She also shared in her piece that there are so many ways to deal with health issues but the most important thing is for women to learn about the options they have and what is personally right for someone.
According to Los Angeles Times, many people admired her piece and that experts agree with her statements. Jolie was then dubbed as brave, inspiring, and a courageous advocate for women's health.
Chief Cancer Control Officer at the American Cancer Society, Dr. Richard Wender, shared in a statement that Jolie is a very responsible communicator and he respects her health decisions and her health journey. However, he pointed out, as what Jolie pointed out, that her course of surgeries and treatment are not for everyone so he encouraged people to have themselves tested first before deciding what to do if in case they are a carrier of the BRCA1 gene.
