Angelina Jolie News: More Men Want To Undergo Double Mastectomy After Actress’ Anti-Cancer Procedure

A number of men in the US have followed Angelina Jolie's decision to have a double mastectomy last year to prevent the cancer gene she might have inherited from her mother.

A report from JAMA Surgery said that a 5.6 percent increase from the 3 percent of men in the United States took the contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM), a procedure the healthy breasts without the tumor to rule out the possibility of tumor growths in the future, The Star said.

This also happened among women as there has been a 4.5 per cent to 11 per cent rise between 2003 and 2011 of patients who took CPM.

Called the 'Angelina Jolie effect', the phenomenon might have been influenced by the bourgeoning number of medical tests that can raise the awareness of both men and women as to the risk they have in getting the BRCA1 gene mutation.

However, amidst the furor caused by Jolie's operation last year, Ahmedin Jemal, vice president of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the study still warned the public that there is no 'good evidence' supporting the good effects of CPM to men, Red Orbit reported.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the operation might be beneficial to women diagnosed with the cancer gene, however, males with the BRCA 2 gene mutation may not need it as their chances of getting cancer is as low as seven percent.

"I think the increase we see is in the general population is not only high risk people but other women and men are getting the mastectomy," Jemal said.

Even without ample evidence and effect in the future, Steven Narod, a senior scientist at the Women's College Research Institute in Toronto said that double mastectomy can only lessen the fear of contacting breast cancer.

"We have created a culture of breast cancer awareness, and we've created a countercultural response of fear. When you do a mastectomy, you reduce the fear greatly," he said as mentioned in The Star.

Meanwhile, research from University College, London proposed the use of corrective drugs, mifepristone (an abortion drug) and denosumab (a drug basically used to treat osteoporosis) in regulating the progesterone in the body which causes low levels of an anti-cancer protein called OPG and the production of BRCA1 and BRCA2 cancer cells, Mail Online said.

The drugs, when taken regularly, aims to spare women from taking double mastectomy and the removal of surgeries-two operations that the 39-year old actress has done to lower her risk of getting cancer.