Coronation Street star Sally Dynevor has revealed she fainted when she was told she had breast cancer at the same time her on-screen character was battling the disease.

The soap star said she thought her doctor was confusing her with her character when she was told she had cancer on the same day she filmed the scene where she shared her diagnosis with her on-screen husband.

Dynevor, who has played Sally Metcalfe in the ITV show since 1986, recalled how she only checked herself for a lump after reading the scripts for the soap.

She told BBC Breakfast: "There was a particular day in 2009, I was reading the scripts, and I suddenly had a gap.

"And I thought I'm just going to go and see our nurse and see what she thinks, because I felt something very, very tiny."

She added: "When (the doctor) told me 'You have breast cancer', I fainted. Then I said 'I think you’re getting me mixed up with my character’."

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Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment in 2011 Dynevor said of her illness: "Luckily I've come through the other end. It was a good prognosis from the beginning so you just have to stay strong for those six months.

"I'm just really glad that I've kind of got my life back on track again and I'm doing normal things."

Dynevor is now fronting a British campaign by Prevent Breast Cancer to improve resources to train the next generation of medical staff to work in breast cancer screening.

She said: "When I got breast cancer, I was 46. And I thought that you didn’t get breast cancer at 46, it was for an older person.

"But yesterday I met a young girl who was 22 when she got diagnosed. So this is really important."

She continued: "You never think that’s going to happen to you. When somebody tells you that news, and it comes really out of the blue, it’s really shocking."

Dynevor, who is mother to Bridgerton and Fair Play star Phoebe Dynevor, as well as daughter Harriet and son Samuel, said: "I have two daughters, I don’t want my daughters to go through what I’ve been through so what Prevent is doing is really important."

Source: Press Association