ICANSERVE Foundation’s experience with its flagship program, ‘Ating Dibdibin’, currently in place in seven cities, has brought to fore some recommendations that may inform cancer control programs in low-to-middle-income countries like the Philippines.
Ating Dibdibin was established in 2008 to promote breast cancer risk reduction, early diagnosis, and timely access to treatment; to provide supportive and survivorship care; and to implement patient navigation to improve adherence. In the setting of the decentralized Philippine health-care system, ICANSERVE partners with local governments for funding and implementation..
The program was featured in March 2025 in The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal under the section, ‘Perspectives’. This section contains pieces that look at health and medicine within society including pieces written by individuals with lived experience.
In the published article, recommendations include empowering the target group and understanding their needs. In the case of Ating Dibdibin, needs center on addressing the financial burden of treatment and the other anxieties breast cancer patients face. Other recommendations are training, empowering and funding community-based patient navigators; strengthening health information systems; and engaging government leaders to prioritize cancer.
The article was co-written by ICANSERVE founding president Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, ICANSERVE board member Cecilia Rivera-Montales, and radiation oncologists Aveline Marie D. Ylanan, Juan Martin Magsanoc, Michelle Ann B. Eala, and Edward Christopher Dee.
Access the published study here.