This time, Chris Evert has triumphed, and it wasn’t on the tennis court.
In an opinion piece that appeared on ESPN.com on Tuesday, the tennis icon declared herself “cancer-free.”
The 18-time Grand Slam champion received an ovarian cancer diagnosis in November 2021, which coincided with the passing of her sister Jeanne, who passed away at age 62 in February 2020.
But because of the “genetic road map my sister left behind,” doctors were able to identify the illness early, giving doctors a 90% chance that the cancer “will never come back,” according to Evert.
Despite not having a BRCA mutation, genetic testing on Jeanne found a BRCA-1 variant of “uncertain significance.” Evert penned.
“I received a call informing me that her BRCA variation had been reclassified, and that we should undergo testing because its significance was no longer debatable and it was now very clearly harmful. I was astounded since I had no idea that was possible.
Evert disclosed that she had been diagnosed with the identical BRCA-1 illness variant that killed her sister.
She claimed that if physicians hadn’t discovered the cancer sooner, the situation would have been far more catastrophic. “It is only because of the genetic road map my sister left behind and the strength of scientific development that we identified my disease early enough to do anything about it,” she said.
Instead, I was given a Stage 1 ovarian cancer diagnosis, and I started six rounds of chemotherapy right away, she continued.
Evert claims that while she was awaiting the pathology findings, she “held my breath.”
She stated, adding that she still needed one more surgery, “Fortunately, the report came back clean and clear, and my risk of having breast cancer has been lowered by more than 90%.”
source.nsemwokrom.com
