Avengers: Age of Ultron and How I Met Your Mother star Cobie Smulders reveals ovarian cancer diagnosis aged 25

Smulders is eager to raise awareness of the life-threatening disease

Cobie Smulders battled ovarian cancer five years ago (Getty Images)

Cobie Smulders has spoken about suffering from ovarian cancer aged just 25.

The Canadian actress, now 33 and starring as Maria Hill in Avengers: Age of Ultron, revealed that she underwent surgeries over the course of two years after being diagnosed with the life-threatening disease.

“I had tumours on both ovaries and the cancer had spread into my lymph nodes and surrounding tissues,” she told Women’s Health.

Smulders has had two children with husband Tarran Killam since fighting the illness, which killed around 14,000 women last year alone, but she still struggles to feel “cancer-free”.

“Now that I’m five years out, I’m trying to think of it as a positive thing and what I can learn from it. If I can create more awareness, I’ll do it,” she said.

Smulders, best known for playing Barney and Ted’s on-off love interest Robin in How I Met Your Mother, has posed topless for the magazine’s May edition in a bid to encourage women to be more confident.

“Because it’s a women’s magazine, I feel like being topless is more about being confident and about being happy with your body rather than trying to excite somebody else,” she said. “That’s what this cover was more about.”

Avengers: Age of Ultron reached UK cinemas on Thursday and also stars Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson.