Credit: National Cancer Institute
In the wake of Angelina Jolie Pitt’sannouncement that she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to reduce her risk of ovarian cancer doctors are urging women to proceed cautiously before following her example. She shared her story in an op–ed piece published in The New York Times on Tuesday.
The procedure makes sense for relatively few women, says Noah Kauff, director of Ovarian Cancer Screening and Prevention at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He and others say it is worth considering mainly for those who have inherited a particular genetic mutation known by their associated genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2,particularly if they have a strong family history of breast or ovarian cancer. …
This article originally appeared on Scientific American‘s website on March 5, 2015.
Rebecca Harrington 