'I want other women to hear this': Angelina Jolie reveals why she had her ovaries removed

Hollywood megastar Angelina Jolie has announced that she has had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed over fears of a hereditary form of cancer, following her double mastectomy two years ago.

The actress, who has lost her mother, grandmother and aunt to the disease, said she had the procedure last week after results from a blood test raised fears that she may be in the early stages of cancer.

Jolie's publicising of her double mastectomy pushed the issue into the spotlight, sparking a debate about the pros and cons of the procedure as a preventative measure. Yesterday's announcement could do the same for ovarian cancer, which is the deadliest form of the disease of the female reproductive system, according to the American Cancer Society.

Although tests showed she was not in fact in the early stages of cancer, Jolie said she chose to go ahead with the surgery because of her family history and because she carries a gene mutation that had given her a 50 per cent risk of developing ovarian cancer, the same mutation that put her at 87 per cent risk of developing breast cancer.

"I did not do this solely because I carry the BRCA1 gene mutation, and I want other women to hear this," Jolie wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times, the same way she announced her double mastectomy two years earlier.

"A positive BRCA test does not mean a leap to surgery," said Jolie, who is married to fellow Hollywood heart throb Brad Pitt with whom she has six children.