In a bid to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer, Angelina Jolie has revealed that she underwent a double mastectomy.

Jolie, who wrote in the New York Times that she had the procedure done in order to minimize the chances of getting the disease. Jolie has a faulty gene that increases the risk of cancer. Doctors told Jolie that she had a 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. It was found that Jolie was carrying a faulty gene mutation that increasees the liklihood of her contracting cancer.

“Once I knew this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much as I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy,” she wrote. Jolie’s mother died at age 56 from cancer.

Jolie underwent treatment that was completed in April. The treatment had taken a full three months. The treatment wasnot revealed and was kept under wraps. But, now that it is over Jolie felt that she should reveal what she had done in order that it might help other women in similar situations.

Breast cancer kills 458,000 people a year world-wide. Approximately one in 400 carry the faulty BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation.