Angelina Jolie Has Her Ovaries Removed

Angelina Jolie penned a New York Times op-ed on removing her ovaries and fallopian tubes, two years after sharing her account of undergoing a preventive double mastectomy. Jolie carries a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which poses an estimated 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer. The actress and UN envoy lost her mother, grandmother, and aunt to cancer. Jolie explained the oophorectomy and added that she had a progesterone IUD inserted into her uterus to help prevent uterine cancer and balance hormones. The procedure also forced her into menopause and she can no longer have children. “I feel at ease with whatever will come, not because I am strong but because this is a part of life,” she wrote.