U.S. actress Angelina Jolie has revealed she has had a preventative double mastectomy after learning she was likely to develop breast cancer. She says she’s speaking out in the hope that other women can benefit from her experience. Wu Yina has more on the reason behind her surgery.

The 37-year-old Oscar winning actress wrote in the New York Times that she made the difficult decision to have surgery after doctors told her that she has a defective gene known as BRCA1. It increases her risk of developing breast cancer to 87% and doctors put the risk of ovarian cancer which killed her mother at the age of 56 at 50%. She says the double mastectomy involved weeks of complex surgery and breast reconstruction using implants. And now her chances of developing breast cancer have dropped to under 5%. Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard commended Jolie’s bravery.

“I can’t imagine being confronted with that decision. But I guess it reminds us all that we have got to get all of the checking and all of the health stuff done. And if one woman is out there today reading about Angelina Jolie and then saying ‘Gee, it has been a while since I’ve gone to get a breast screen.’ I hope she goes.”

The founder of the Los Angeles facility that did the surgery also praised Jolie for what she called her bold choices. “We hope that the awareness she is raising around the world will save countless lives.”

The World Health Organization says breast cancer kills about 458,000 people each year, and estimates that one in every 300 to 500 women carries the BRCA1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation.