ITV’s This Morning Agony Aunt Deidre Sanders diagnosed with cancer after screening ‘error’

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Sanders is encouraging women to have mammograms when they receive their invitations

This Morning star Deidre Sanders has announced that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

She is best known for her role as The Sun’s Agony Aunt, and has helped the nation navigate through their sex and relationship problems for over four decades.

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Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images

The 77-year-old said her diagnosis came as an error meant that she was never invited for a mammogram when she turned 70.

The NHS automatically invites women for their first breast screening between the ages of 50 and 53. Women are then invited for one every three years until they turn 71.

Women over the age of 71 can request a scan, but no automatic appointments will be scheduled.

Speaking to The Sun, she described how she began to develop a back pain last summer, which then spread to her right breast.

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This led Sanders to schedule an appointment at the breast clinic at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge.

She was then put on a two week cancer pathway which is a referral process for anyone who has suspected cancer.

After undergoing a mammogram, which is the process of using low-energy X-rays to examine the human breast, which revealed malignant cells.

Sanders said that she was invited for a screening ‘a couple of years later’ but didn’t take the offer up. She said: “By then I reckoned I must be too old to need it any more as the NHS stops inviting you for a screening after that age. Hah!"

Mentioning the diagnosis on 27 September, Sanders also revealed that she is scheduled for surgery on Saturday, 1 October.

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