ArticleBreast cancer research and treatment2018
Risk-reducing mastectomy rates in the US: a closer examination of the Angelina Jolie effect.
Article in Breast cancer research and treatment, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Social Media Listening to Understand the Lived Experience of Individuals in Europe With Metastatic Breast Cancer: A Systematic Search and Content Analysis Study.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Pooled it
- Simultaneous Risk-Reducing Mastectomy and Salpingo-Oophorectomy in Patients withJournal of personalized medicine · 2026Article
- Trends in breast reconstruction for BRCA1/2, PALB2 and other high penetrance germline pathogenic variant carriers undergoing risk reducing mastectomy.Familial cancer · 2026Article
- Risk of Breast and Ovarian Cancer After Prophylactic Mastectomy and Salpingo-Oophorectomy in BRCA1/2 Germline Variant Carriers: A Retrospective Cohort Study From a Single German Center.Cancer medicine · 2026Article
- Time trends, uptake, and oncological effects of risk-reducing surgeries in 3067 Danish BRCA1/2 carriers: a population-based study with matched controls.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2025Article
- Prostate specific antigen retesting intervals and trends in England: population based cohort study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Breast cancer in patients under 40 years: an 11-year retrospective cohort analysis.Archives of gynecology and obstetrics · 2025Article
- Emotional distress and quality of life in high and moderate penetrance germline mutations carriers diagnosed with breast cancer: a preliminary study.Medicine and pharmacy reports · 2025Article
- Association of family history with patient characteristics and prognosis in a large European gastroesophageal cancer cohort.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2025Article
- Breast Cancer Occurrence After Risk-reducing Mastectomies in 274 Cases: A Single Center With More Than 42 Years of Experience.Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open · 2025Article
- A Scoping Review of Primary Breast Cancer Risk Reduction Strategies in East and Southeast Asia.Cancers · 2025Review
- Breast Cancer Statistics in Korea, 2021.Journal of breast cancer · 2024Review
- Factors influencing prophylactic surgical intervention in women with genetic predisposition for breast cancer.Journal of surgical oncology · 2024Article
- Associations between news coverage, social media discussions, and search trends about celebrity deaths, screening, and other colorectal cancer-related events.Preventive medicine · 2024Article
- Contralateral prophylactic mastectomy in a rural population: A single-institution experience.Surgery open science · 2024Article
- Costs of Cancer Prevention: Physical and Psychosocial Sequelae of Risk-Reducing Total Gastrectomy.Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2024Article
- Do you 'like' problems? The linkage between college students' interactions with alcohol-related content on social media and their alcohol-related problems.Drug and alcohol review · 2024Article
- Microsatellite Instability Is Insufficiently Used as a Biomarker for Lynch Syndrome Testing in Clinical Practice.JCO precision oncology · 2024Article
- Article
- Bilateral risk-reducing mastectomies in American culture.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeIn 2013, Angelina Jolie disclosed in the New York Times (NYT) that she had undergone risk-reducing bilateral mastectomy (RRBM) after learning that she was a BRCA1 mutation carrier. We examined the rates of BRCA testing and RRBM from 1997 to 2016, and quantified trends before and after the Jolie op-ed.
methodsThis observational study of insurance claims data representative of the commercially-insured US population (Truven MarketScan® database) measured BRCA testing and RRBM rates among females ≥ 18 years. Censoring events were breast cancer or ovarian cancer diagnosis, last follow-up date (September 2016), or death. Interrupted time series analyses were used to quantify trends before and after the op-ed.
resultsAngelina Jolie's NYT op-ed led to a statistically significant increase in the uptake of genetic testing and in RRBM among women without previous diagnosis of breast or ovarian cancer in the US population, and in women who did not undergo testing for BRCA (P < 0.0001 for both). The rate (slope) of RRBM among women who were previously tested for BRCA (P = 0.70) was unchanged. After excluding women with in-situ tumors, the editorial's effect became less pronounced, suggesting that high-risk women with in-situ breast cancers were most influenced by Jolie's announcement.
conclusionThe Angelina Effect-a term coined by Time magazine to describe the rise in internet searches related to breast cancer genetics and counseling-represents a long-lasting impact of celebrity on public health awareness as significant increases in genetic testing and mastectomy rates were observed and sustained in subsequent years.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.