BRCA Mutations and Cancer Prophylaxis: Finding Courage Through One Woman's Bravery

In a March 24, 2015, New York Times op-ed piece, 39-year-old filmmaker Angelina Jolie Pitt described her recent laparoscopic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and subsequent initiation of hormone therapy. A BRCA1 mutation carrier, Jolie Pitt lost her mother and grandmother to ovarian cancer and her aunt to breast cancer.

Many premenopausal BRCA mutation carriers defer risk-reducing gynecologic surgery because they dread the menopausal symptoms that inevitably follow loss of ovarian function. Understandably, such women — many of whom have seen their relatives battle breast cancer — worry that they cannot safely use hormone replacement therapy (a concern shared by many clinicians). Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, evidence shows that BR…