Marcia Cross credits a routine medical check with saving her life

Speaking on 'CBS This Morning', she said: "I was so not thinking anything was wrong because I didn't have any symptoms.

"She gave me an exam and came around and said, 'Well, I just want you to know, whatever it is it's curable.' It was like - 'What?! What are you talking about?' "

Doctors suspect Marcia's cancer and her husband Tom Mahoney's 2009 battle with throat cancer came from the same type of human papillomavirus, (HPV), which can be transferred through sexual intercourse or skin-to-skin contact, so the couple - who are both in remission - are planning to have their 12-year-old twin daughters, Eden and Savannah, vaccinated against HPV very soon.

Marcia said: "My girls don't know it, but they're up for their first shot at the end of the school year."

The former 'Desperate Housewives' star hopes she can end the embarrassment surrounding anal cancer and doesn't want sufferers to feel "ashamed" of the condition.

She said: "I know there are people who are ashamed. You have cancer! Do you have to then also feel ashamed? Like you did something bad, you know, because it took up residence in your anus?

"I mean, come on, really. There's enough on your plate.

"Even for me, it took a while. Anus, anus, anus! You just have to get used to it."