Angelina Jolie inspires women with her on-screen performances and humanitarian work. She may have given even more women the courage to take care of their health.
A new study published in the journal, Breast Cancer Research, cited “the Angelina Jolie effect” as the reason for a spike in referrals to breast cancer clinics. More than double the women have sought treatment based on their family history.
Jolie revealed she underwent a preventive double mastectomy after doctors told her she had an 87 percent chance of acquiring breast cancer due to a “faulty” BRCA 1 gene, she wrote in a New York Times op-ed last year. She also plans to have a similar preventive oophorectomy (ovariectomy) in light of her mother Marcheline Bertrand’s early death from ovarian cancer at age 57.
“For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options,” Jolie wrote. “I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.”
The gene mutation to the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 can affect one in 500 people. The defect in BRCA 1 has a 65 percent risk of getting breast cancer.
"The Angelina Jolie effect has been long-lasting and global, and appears to have increased referrals to centres appropriately," concluded the research team led by Prof Gareth Evans of the University of Manchester.
The study analyzed more than 20 genetic testing centers and clinics in the UK after the Times published the op-ed in May 2013. The number of referrals for genetic counseling and DNA tests for breast cancer mutations increased by two and a half times in June and July (4,837) compared to the same time in 2012 (1,981).
The rate remained the same for October 2013. Researchers also found more patients asking about risk-reducing mastectomies.
“This may have lessened patients' fears about a loss of sexual identity post-preventative surgery and encouraged those who had not previously engaged with health services to consider genetic testing,” the research team wrote.
