Lifesaver! Angelina Jolie Cancer Doctor Reveals How Honesty Saved 'Countless' Lives -- 'Continue To Applaud Her'
Nov. 15 2016, Updated 10:40 a.m. ET
Angelina Jolie has shocked the world with the recent news that she recently had her ovaries & fallopian tubes removed in a bid to prevent the type of cancer that killed her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, in 2007. Now, her doctor is speaking out to RadarOnline.com to reveal how going public with her secret could have saved millions.
“We continue to applaud Angelina Jolie's willingness to share her journey with the BRCA gene mutation,” Jolie's breast cancer doctor, Dr. Kristi Funk, tells RadarOnline.com exclusively, referring to the gene mutation BRCA1 and BRCA2, which stands for BReast CAncer and is passed down from one generation to the next, making the kin more susceptible to Cancer.
According to Dr. Funk, “Women carrying BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations have up to an 87% lifetime chance of breast cancer and 54% chance of ovarian cancer vs. a general population risk of 12% for breast cancer and less than 1% for ovarian cancer.”
“Since the original release of her story, countless women around the world have been made aware of the gene and have been able to explore lifesaving treatment options to lower the risk it poses to their health,” says Dr. Funk.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the 39-year-old mother of six explained the decision to have her Ovaries and Fallopian Tubes removed in in a New York Times op-ed piece titled “Diary Of A Surgery.”
In it, she declared that she's “now in menopause,” and “will not be able to have any more children,” she's accepting of the situation, knowing it's a “part of life” that's “nothing to be feared.”
Jolie adds that, perhaps what she is most comfortable with is that her children will never have to lose her to ovarian cancer.
In 2013, Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, announced to the world that had had undergone a double mastectomy.
At the time, Dr. Funk, of the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Beverly Hills, Calif, wrote a detailed blog about her experience, called “A Patient's Journey: Angelina Jolie,” commending Jolie for her bravery.
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