Pediatric cancers and family financial toxicity in the Philippines: insights for Southeast Asia and similarly resourced settings.

Cancer is a leading cause of death among children in the Philippines, a low-middle-income country of over 110 million people. In this Comment, we describe how financial toxicity affects families of pediatric patients with cancer in the Philippines. We explore direct costs of care, indirect costs such as transportation and lodging, and psychosocial sequelae, in the Filipino medical system and sociocultural contexts.

Radiotherapy resources in the Philippines: A 2022 update.

Background: Cancer is the third leading cause of death in the Philippines. Radiotherapy (RT) is integral to the treatment and palliation of cancer. Therefore, RT resources across the country must be surveyed and optimized.

Growing the global cancer care system: success stories from around the world and lessons for the future.

Despite major biomedical advancements in various realms of oncology, the benefits of these developments are not equitably distributed, particularly in underresourced settings. Although much work has described the challenges and systemic barriers in global cancer control, in this article we focus on success stories. This article describes clinical care delivered at Rwanda's Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence, the cancer research collaborations under India's National Cancer Grid, and the efforts of Latin America's Institute of Cancer of São Paulo in advancing cancer care and training.

Access to surgical treatment for hepatopancreaticobiliary cancer in the Philippines.

Hepatopancreaticobiliary cancers are among the most diagnosed cancers in the world. However, although high-income countries have the highest incidence rates, low- and middle-income countries have the highest mortality rates. In this article, we describe the geographic distribution of board-certified hepatopancreaticobiliary surgeons who provide surgical management for patients with these diseases in the Philippines.

Social determinants of sex disparities in cancer in Southeast Asia.

Sex disparities in cancer exist along the cancer spectrum, ranging from genomic predisposition and behavioral risk factors to access to screening, diagnostics, treatment, and survivorship care. A growing body of research is studying the biological underpinnings of these differences, from cancer risk to tumor biology to treatment response. It is well known, however, that the social determinants of health play a large role across the cancer disease continuum, which encompasses risk, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, rehabilitation, and palliative care.

Leveraging national and global political determinants of health to promote equity in cancer care.

Health and politics are deeply intertwined. In the context of national and global cancer care delivery, political forces-the political determinants of health-influence every level of the cancer care continuum. We explore the "3-I" framework, which structures the upstream political forces that affect policy choices in the context of actors' interests, ideas, and institutions, to examine how political determinants of health underlie cancer disparities.

Disparities in access to cancer diagnostics in ASEAN member countries.

Diagnostics, including laboratory tests, medical and nuclear imaging, and molecular testing, are essential in the diagnosis and management of cancer to optimize clinical outcomes. With the continuous rise in cancer mortality and morbidity in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), there exists a critical need to evaluate the accessibility of cancer diagnostics in the region so as to direct multifaceted interventions that will address regional inequities and inadequacies in cancer care. This paper identifies existing gaps in service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, leadership and governance, and financing and how these contribute to disparities in access to cancer diagnostics in ASEAN member countries.

Palliative and Supportive Care in the Philippines: Systems, Barriers, and Steps Forward.

Although integral to alleviating serious health-related suffering, global palliative care remains systemically and culturally inaccessible to many patients living in low- and middle-income countries. In the Philippines, a lower-middle income country in Southeast Asia of over 110 million people, up to 75% of patients with cancer suffer from inadequate pain relief. We reviewed factors that preclude access to basic palliative care services in the Philippines.

Geographic Distribution of Cancer Care Providers in the Philippines.

Purpose: In the Philippines, a lower middle-income country in Southeast Asia, 6 of 10 Filipinos die without seeing a doctor. To ensure universal access to cancer care, providers must be equitably distributed. Therefore, we evaluated the distribution of oncologists across all 17 regions in the Philippines.

End-of-life care for Filipino patients with cancer.

Providing end-of-life care within the cultural context of a Filipino patient in the United States is a complex process for clinicians, patients, and their families. An inclusive approach is crucial, especially because a significant proportion of patients belong to minority groups such as Filipinos, who represent the fourth largest group of immigrants in the United States as of data available in 2019. The case provided in this paper highlights the importance of family, religion, and finances in guiding the best possible way of providing end-of-life care for Filipino patients with cancer.

Breast and cervical cancer screening in the Philippines: Challenges and steps forward.

In 2020, breast and cervical cancer were the top 2 cancers among Filipino women in terms of incidence. In the Philippines, a lower-middle income country in Southeast Asia with more than 50 million women, majority of breast and cervical cancer patients are diagnosed at advanced stages, as high out-of-pocket healthcare costs, the centralization of health human resources and infrastructure in the capital, and the absence of organized national screening programs preclude access to breast and cervical cancer screening. Low health literacy and gendered sociocultural pressures among Filipino women compound these systemic challenges.