Grey's Anatomy stars sign up for two more seasons

'Grey's Anatomy' stars Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey have signed up for two more seasons of the show.

Ellen, Patrick, Sandrah Oh, Justin Chambers, James Pickens Jr. and Chandra Wilson have reportedly put pen to paper on new two-year deals that will see the ABC medical drama continue through the 2013/14 season, taking the programme past a 10th series, according to TVLine.

'Grey's Anatomy' - which is currently in its eighth season - attracted 9.25 million viewers in the US last week, and the show looks set to become one of the longest-running medical dramas in TV history.

Earlier this year, Katherine Heigl admitted she wants to return to the show, despite leaving in a storm of controversy in 2010 after criticising her character Dr. Izzie Stevens.

She previously said: "I've told them I want to [return]. I don't know ... Being a showrunner and being a writer of a TV series like that is so complicated that I mean she's got how many characters are there now? There's a lot and so she's balancing about 40 different storylines, so I don't know if it fits in to their sort of vision for this season or next or however many seasons it goes."

Series narrator and lead female star Ellen - who has played Meredith Grey since the show started in 2005 - insisted she would be happy to continue portraying the surgical resident.

She explained: "If I hear from the fans that they want us to keep going, then I would continue because we owe them everything."