HRH Princess Dina Mired of Jordan, former president of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), will deliver the opening address at the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS) to be held online from September 23-25, 2022.
A mother of a cancer survivor, HRH Princess Dina served as UICC president from 2018-2020. She was the first Arab Muslim to have been elected to such a prestigious global post. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, UICC is a non-governmental organization counting 1,180 member organizations in more than 170 countries.
HRH Princess Dina is a leading national and global figure in advocacy work on behalf of cancer patients and their families. She established and led the King Hussein Cancer Foundation (KHCF) from 2002 until June 2016. Princess Dina transformed the non-profit into a brand known not only in Jordan, but also in the global movement for people affected by cancer.
Philippines-based ICANSERVE Foundation, Inc. and U.S.-based Global Focus on Cancer host this year’s SEABCS previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference). This is the first time that a patient advocacy group will host such a regional conference. It had been hosted by medical societies in the host countries of earlier years.
With the support of the American Society of Clinical Oncology or ASCO and UICC, the SEABCS is open to all with topics that appeal to various stakeholders—doctors, caregivers, patient advocates, and cancer survivors at any point in their journey.
Former Health Secretary Ubial to keynote 2nd day of SEA conference
Dr. Paulyn Ubial, former Health Secretary of the Philippines, will deliver the keynote address on the 2nd day of the Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS) to be held online from September 23-25, 2022.
Ubial has spent her entire career in public health, starting as a volunteer rural physician in Kidapawan, Cotabato. She was later assigned to the Department of Health headquarters in Manila, where she headed the Polio Eradication Unit under the late Health Secretary Juan Flavier. From 2008 to June 2016, she was an Assistant Health Secretary until her appointment as Secretary of Health under then President Rodrigo Duterte.
"ALL for Health toward Health for ALL" was my advocacy tagline when I was Secretary of Health here in the Philippines because I believed then...and it is still relevant today that everyone should be concerned about health, not just their own but of their relatives and neighbors as well. This advocacy I would like to bring to this 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium on September 23-25, 2022. All our efforts, new treatments as well as support services to help breast cancer survivors and for the general public, on how to prevent getting breast cancer, be involved in early detection and as support mechanism to patients and their families must be shared, so we do not repeat mistakes and learn from already known and established strategies and not waste time starting from step one... This is the relevance of this yearly forum, so all countries in Southeast Asia can move forward together in the fight against a silent pandemic of breast cancer and cancers in general," says Ubial. She is currently consultant/head of Molecular Laboratories of Philippine Red Cross, while also teaching as adjunct professor at the University of the Philippines College of Public Health.
Philippines-based ICANSERVE Foundation, Inc. and U.S.-based Global Focus on Cancer host this year’s SEABCS previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference). With the support of the American Society of Clinical Oncology or ASCO and the Union for International Cancer Control, the SEABCS is open to all with topics that appeal to various stakeholders—doctors, caregivers, patient advocates, and cancer survivors at any point in their journey.
Among the topics to be discussed during the conference are using positive peer pressure in Vietnam; measuring and improving happiness among patients in Malaysia; a breast cancer control program under local governments in the Philippines; managing unwelcome effects of breast cancer treatment; courage in facing advanced breast cancer; how the food you eat can influence cancer; using social media for advocacy; advanced technologies and artificial intelligence in healthcare; stories of hope, and many others. ASCO is also presenting the latest findings from its annual meeting that are relevant for lower and middle-income countries.
6th SEABCS: Rock star clinical oncologists to present the latest in cancer treatment
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) sponsors a session at the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS) to be held online from September 23-25, 2022.
On the first day of the conference, ASCO panelists will discuss, “Doing What’s Best for your Patients: Putting the Latest Findings from the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting into Practice in LMIC (low to middle-income countries) Settings”.
Dr. Roselle de Guzman, a Philippines-based medical oncologist, academic and chair of ASCO’s Asia Pacific Regional Council, says, “We are excited to welcome the experts from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. They will share and discuss the latest research findings in breast cancer treatment. We hope to have an interactive discussion and know more about how the information can be applied to improve the care of our patients in Southeast Asia. Breast cancer knows no boundaries. Access to the best and most appropriate treatment and care despite the limitation in resources is crucial for every patient with breast cancer in this part of the world.”
Speaking at this particular ASCO session are medical doctors Julie Gralow, Don Dizon, Mylin Torres and Jane Brock.
Gralow is the founder of the Women’s Empowerment Cancer Advocacy Network (WE CAN), and supports patient advocates in low- and middle-resource countries. She is currently chief medical officer and executive vice president of ASCO. She is also a professor in the Clinical Research Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and director of Breast Medical Oncology at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.
Dizon is a medical oncologist specializing in the care of women with breast or gynecologic cancers, survivorship particularly as it pertains to sexual health for men and women with cancer, patient engagement, and social media. He is an ASCO fellow and chairs the Digital Engagement for SWOG Oncology Research Network.
Torres is a professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. She serves as co-leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control research program at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University where she coordinates and promotes all of the cancer prevention and control-related research activities. She practices general radiation oncology and specializes in the treatment of breast cancer.
Brock is the chief of the Breast Pathology Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, the second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the hospital’s Breast Pathology Fellowship program director and also medical director of the Surgical Pathology Grossing Room. She is an associate professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.
On the second day of SEABCS, Brock and Gralow will lead a track on “The power of the measured Marker,” referring to tumor markers or substances that are found in higher-than-normal levels in the blood or tissue of some people with cancer. Also on the second day, Gralow will join a panel on “Making Personalized Medicine the Standard in Breast Care.”
On the third day, Dizon will be part of a panel on “Post-treatment Breast Health” which will cover follow up care and other survivorship issues.
Philippines-based ICANSERVE Foundation, Inc. and U.S.-based Global Focus on Cancer host this year’s SEABCS previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference).
Southeast Asian patient advocates seek to learn from PH ad guru
Patient advocates joining the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS) to be held online from September 23-25, 2022 are in for a treat.
Filipino advertising guru Marlon Rivera will talk about “Unleashing the Power of Social Media in Your Advocacy” in a session to be moderated by broadcast journalist-turned-entrepreneur Ces Drilon.
Rivera has been working in advertising since 1988. A copywriter by profession, he was chief creative officer and president of Publicis Manila, a French company that has a subsidiary in Manila. He teaches VIsual Communication at the University of the Philippines. He is also a fashion designer, make-up artist, production designer and director.
Rivera will speak on the second day of SEABCS, hosted for the first time in the Philippines by ICANSERVE Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates early breast cancer detection and access to timely and correct treatment. Global Focus on Cancer is co-host of the event, previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference).
With the support of the American Society of Clinical Oncology or ASCO and the Union for International Cancer Control, the SEABCS is open to all with topics that appeal to various stakeholders—doctors, caregivers, patient advocates, and cancer survivors at any point in their journey.
6th SEABCS: Artificial Intelligence to predict breast cancer risk
Early breast cancer detection goes high tech with artificial intelligence now being used to predict breast cancer risk under a study called the Mirai Project.
Learn about this mammography-based model for predicting breast cancer risk at the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium to be held online from September 23-25, 2022.
Adam Yala from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) speaks on the first day of SEABCS about the Mirai Project. Yala is the lead author of the paper on Mirai, published in 2021. The work was supported by grants from Susan G Komen, Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Quanta Computing, and the MIT Jameel Clinic. It was also supported by Chang Gung Medical Foundation Grant, and by Stockholm Läns Landsting HMT Grant.
Mirai was trained on a dataset of over 200,000 exams from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the team validated it on test sets from MGH, the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan. Mirai was significantly more accurate than prior methods in predicting cancer risk and identifying high-risk groups across all three datasets. Mirai was similarly accurate across patients of different races, age groups, and breast density categories in the MGH test set, and across different cancer subtypes in the Karolinska test set. As a risk model, Mirai predicts a patient’s breast risk for each year over the next five years.
Yala will speak in the same SEABCS track, “Advanced technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare”, together with Dr. Kingsley Ndoh, a clinical assistant professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. Ndoh is the co-founder of Hurone AI--a digital health startup that is focused on bridging the gaps of cancer care and improving outcomes through AI-enabled personalized cancer prevention and early diagnosis, patient management and navigation, and tele-oncology in underserved regions starting with Rwanda. Ndoh is a member of the Technical Working Committee of WHO's Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI).
Philippines-based ICANSERVE Foundation, Inc. and U.S.-based Global Focus on Cancer host this year’s SEABCS previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference). With the support of the American Society of Clinical Oncology or ASCO and the Union for International Cancer Control, the SEABCS is open to all with topics that appeal to various stakeholders—doctors, caregivers, patient advocates, and cancer survivors at any point in their journey.
CEO of 25-year old foundation to grace 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium
Longevity is a major issue faced by many patient organizations, in particular those led by cancer survivors. Leaders may suffer a recurrence, a spread of cancer, or even pass away while members may not be ready to step into the leadership role.
The topic, “Future Proofing Your Organization”, will delve into this and similar issues at the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS) to be held online from September 23-26, 2022.
Pat Garcia-Gonzalez, co-founder and chief executive officer of The Max Foundation, will share her insights on the second day of the conference.
Founded in 1997, the Max Foundation provides cancer patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with humanitarian access to life-saving treatment and care that is otherwise not available. It channels over 10 million doses of cancer treatment to patients each year in 72 LMICs. The organization carries out its daily work in partnership with a global network of more than 500 physicians and 200 hospitals and medical institutions, as well as several local non-government organizations and patient associations.
Philippines-based ICANSERVE Foundation, Inc. and U.S.-based Global Focus on Cancer host this year’s SEABCS previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference). This is the first time that a patient advocacy group will host such a regional conference. It had been hosted by medical societies in the host countries of earlier years.
With the support of the American Society of Clinical Oncology or ASCO and the Union for International Cancer Control, the SEABCS is open to all with topics that appeal to various stakeholders—doctors, caregivers, patient advocates, and cancer survivors at any point in their journey.
SEABCS brings breast cancer community together through dance
ICanServe Foundation gathers cancer survivors, patient advocates, health professionals, researchers, and policy makers at the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS) to share ideas, collaborate on solutions… and dance!
To lighten the mood amidst a lineup of serious topics, this year’s SEABCS host encouraged breast cancer support groups and allies to participate in the SEABCS Community Video Dance Presentation. Groups from around the region gamely gathered to learn the Zumba-style choreography to an upbeat, inspirational song chosen for the occasion. Dressed in various shades of pink, they then recorded themselves dancing in scenic spots around their respective localities. The compilation video will be presented at the closing ceremony of SEABCS, to be held online from September 23-25, 2022.
ICanServe president Nikoy de Guzman led the effort, saying “If we can serve, then we can dance too! What a joy to lead these group of survivors and supporters in showcasing not just the causes that we fight for, but more so the talents we were blessed with.”
Participants were grateful for the opportunity to film the dance video, especially after more than two years of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions on social gatherings. “It was a great excuse to meet up again in person, to bond and get moving,” said Karen Lluch of Thrive, a support group based in Cagayan de Oro City. “We danced to share the hope of thriving forward,” she added.
Be inspired by the boundless energy and enthusiasm of the breast cancer community at SEABCS. US-based Global Focus on Cancer is co-host of the event, previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference).
6th SEABCS: ICanServe to launch online manual for breast cancer patients
Philippines-based ICANSERVE Foundation, Inc. launches its online Manual for breast cancer patients on the last day of the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS), to be held virtually from September 23-25, 2022.
CANSERVE’s comprehensive and engaging Manual is designed to guide breast cancer patients, survivors, and their caregivers throughout every step of their journey, from understanding their diagnosis to living beyond cancer. Written entirely by breast cancer survivors, the Breast Cancer Patient’s Manual delivers vital information in a conversational manner to help patients feel less overwhelmed and intimidated.
A source of information and encouragement, the Manual combines information gleaned from studies and established sources, such as the American Cancer Society, the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, Philippine Cancer Society, and more, as well as individual experiences and anecdotes from breast cancer survivors. It covers a wide range of topics, from the medical (understanding treatment options, managing side effects), to the personal (how to tell your family and friends), to the practical (financing cancer treatment). “We made sure to tell real stories, in a language and manner that every survivor or advocate can relate to,” says the Manual’s editor Alya B. Honasan. “For every member of the editorial team, it was all about reaching out to sisters who needed help.”
ICANSERVE goes back to its roots with this project. Founded in 1999 by four breast cancer survivors—Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, Crisann Celdran, Becky Fuentes, and Bet Lazatin—its first project was a printed guidebook that was distributed for free in the days when information on breast cancer was much harder to come by. The foundation has since evolved into one of the Philippines’ most active cancer patient advocacy groups, taking part in policy-making and institutionalizing breast cancer control programs.
The Manual will be available for free as a downloadable book after the launch. The SEABCS, hosted for the first time in the Philippines by ICANSERVE and Global Focus on Cancer, was previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference).
Founder of UK start-up Boost Innovations to speak at 6th SEABCS
When Sam Jackman’s mother had a mastectomy as part of breast cancer treatment, she found that the traditional silicone gel prosthesis was hot, sweaty, uncomfortable, and unsuitable for an active lifestyle. After many years of searching online for an alternative, Sam mentioned her frustration to her colleague Rosie Brave. They soon realized that many other women felt the same way and the idea for Boost was formed.
Jackman, the co-founder and director of Boost Innovations Ltd., will talk about her invention in a session entitled “Unlocking Patient Power: Homegrown Innovations and Breakthroughs” at the 6th Southeast Asia Breast Cancer Symposium (SEABCS) to be held online from September 23-25, 2022.
Boost is a Cornwall, UK-based start-up company which aims to create products with women, for women after breast cancer treatment. Inspired by Sam’s mother, Boost developed a revolutionary approach to breast form design that seeks to solve issues women have with current market breast prostheses. Sam’s background in education, cultural heritage, and project management has enabled her to bring a creative perspective for the business.
“We founded Boost because we believe that breast forms don’t have to be beige, boring or heavy. We involve people who wear our products in our design process, and welcome feedback and product design suggestions. We think that a breast shaper product should bring positivity and should help you to feel good,” explained Jackman and her co-founder in a statement on their website, https://wewearboost.com.
Be inspired by Sam and other breast cancer patient advocates at the 6th SEABCS, hosted by Philippines-based ICANSERVE Foundation, Inc. and U.S.-based Global Focus on Cancer. A gathering of the region’s cancer survivors, patient advocates, health professionals, researchers, and policy makers, SEABCS was previously held in Vietnam (2016), Myanmar (2017), Malaysia (2018), Thailand (2019), and Indonesia (2021- virtual conference).
Join the conversation. Registration is free. Register for the virtual conference at https://seabcsphilippines.ph/
This is a press release distributed by TGSC