Christina Applegate

In April 2008, Christina Applegate -- she of “Married with Children” sitcom fame as Kelly, the air-headed, built like a brick house daughter in the family -- was first diagnosed with breast cancer. The daughter of a breast cancer survivor, Applegate had been getting mammograms since she was 30 years of age. In 2007, her doctor recommended an MRI because her breast was “too dense” to get good images with a mammogram.

In 2008, doctors found a cancerous lump in her left breast in the early stages of development. Within a week, she had her first surgery to remove the cancer and underwent six weeks of radiation therapy. She had herself tested for the “breast cancer gene” or BRCA and it came back positive.

 “That sort of changed everything for me," she says. "Radiation was something temporary, and it wasn't addressing the issue of this coming back or the chance of it coming back in my left breast. I sort of had to kind of weigh all my options at that point.”

Women with the BRCA gene have a 40 to 85 percent chance of breast or ovarian cancer. The gene also increases the odds that the cancer will return. Applegate had a bilateral mastectomy in July  2008 and says that every time she looks in the mirror, she cannot help but mourn and grieve for the loss of her breasts.

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie, famous actress and activist, had a bilateral mastectomy in 2013 because she tested positive for the BRCA gene. Her mother, grandmother and aunt had all been struck down by cancer. Because of that, physicians gave Jolie an estimated risk of 87 percent for breast cancer and 50 percent for ovarian cancer. This gene is also strongly associated with other cancers such as uterine, prostate, colon, pancreatic or cervical cancers.