Less than a year after actress Angelina Jolie went public with her decision to have a preventative double mastectomy, she revealed that she has plans to undergo another operation. Last May, Jolie wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times revealing that she had tested positive for the breast cancer-related BRCA1 gene.
The Oscar-winning actress said that doctors told her she had an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer so she made the decision to undergo the surgery. Beginning in February 2013, she started secret procedures that lasted about three months.
The preventative surgery was successful with doctors telling the actress that her chances of developing the disease went down to five percent.
"Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much as I could," she wrote. "I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy."
However, carrying the BRCA1 gene also meant that Jolie was at risk for developing ovarian cancer - the same disease that took her mother's life at the age of 56. In her op-ed Jolie said doctors informed her that her chances of getting ovarian cancer were at least 50 percent.
"I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex," she wrote in the op-ed.
Now, the "Maleficent" actress said she has plans to undergo another preventative operation to lower her cancer risk.
"There's still another surgery to have, which I haven't [had] yet," she told Entertainment Weekly. "I'll get advice from all these wonderful people who I've been talking to, to get through that stage."
In her op-ed Jolie said she wanted to publicly share her health issues because she hoped it would inspire other women to get tested for the gene.
"I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options."
