Angelina Jolie's brave steps to dodge the cancer risk posed by her genetic makeup do not come without dangers, according Dr. David Samadi of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Samadi told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV that the Oscar-winning actress' double mastectomy, which she plans on following with the removal of her ovaries and hormone therapy, can have serious side effects.
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"There are … risks that come with hormones. So there’s no question that there’s going to be some physiological changes,'' said Samadi, Vice Chairman of the Dept. of Urology and Chief of Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery.
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But, Samadi added, the risks are more than worth it.
"We want to have her around than having this cancer, which is a deadly one — ovarian cancer, or even breast cancer when it metastasizes,'' he said.
"So there will be some uphill battles [for her] at the very young age of 37. But that’s what it takes to be cancer free.
"Unfortunately, she has the risk and the genes for it and she’s brave enough to go through it and I salute her.''
Earlier this week, Jolie wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times revealing her decision to have a double mastectomy.
"My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56 … I find myself trying to explain [to my children] the illness that took her away from us,'' she said.
"They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a 'faulty' gene … which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
"My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.''
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