Actress Angelina Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy in order to keep breast cancer at bay. The actress's mother died at the age of 52 from ovarian cancer and she herself was found to have the mutated form of the BRCA1 gene which put her at a 80 per cent risk of developing breast cancer. What is this procedure? Why did she need to have it? How is the genetic testing for breast cancer done? Is it available in India? We answer some such questions in this post. What is a preventive mastectomy and why is it needed? Also known as