“I have cancer.”
With these three words, John Lesaca silenced the crowd at the 1st Philippine Cervical Cancer Elimination Summit. It was the first time he’d made his diagnosis public, continuing with, “I have lymphoma.”
John is living with lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma, a rare blood cancer where lymphocytes or B cells in the blood attack the immunity-enhancing components of his blood. As it increases and hits critical mass, it compromises his immune system.
This is what informs Lesaca’s advocacy in spreading cancer awareness. This is why he participated in the summit, taking up his violin after a long period of not performing for the public, serenading the audience with a lively rendition of Maalaala Mo Kaya as his first piece.
“I’m playing [here today] because we need to give. We need to start caring. That’s why you’re here; that’s why we’re all here.”
The 1st Philippine Cervical Cancer Elimination Summit, spearheaded by MSD of the Philippines, was an urgent call to attention for strategic and concrete interventions in the country to address the rapidly growing health burden that is cervical cancer.
It aims to drive collaborative efforts in both the private and public sectors to review and expand cervical cancer prevention and control programs that could save thousands of lives as well as millions of pesos in healthcare costs.
Cervical cancer occurs most often in people over age 30, with long-lasting infections from certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV) being attributed to the main cause of cervical cancer.
HPV is a common virus that is passed from one person to another during sexual intercourse. It develops slowly over time and cells of the cervix go through dysplasia, where abnormal cells begin to appear in the cervical tissue. If not destroyed or removed, the abnormal cells may become cancer cells and start to grow and spread deeper into the cervix and to surrounding areas.
In the Philippines, the incidence of cervical cancer is projected to soar by 19% between 2020 and 2030 in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region alone, and 12 Filipino women on average die due to cervical cancer each day, according to a study in 2022.
This makes cervical cancer the second most frequent cancer among women aged 15 to 44 and puts almost 40 million Filipino women at risk of developing this disease.
It rings particularly ironic considering that this type of cancer is one of the most preventable forms of the disease as 99 percent of cervical cancer cases can be prevented through HPV vaccination. This highlights why the theme of the summit was ‘One Community Against HPV.’
Men are also at risk of developing HPV-associated cancer of the mouth and throat, penis, or anus from certain strains of the virus. While common among sexually active people, infections often cause no symptoms and the immune system usually clears HPV infections. However, an infection with a high-risk virus that persists may result in changes (like dysplasia) in cells that can lead to cancer.
Despite being the first step in beating cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers, vaccination rates in the country remain low. Health research institution EpiMetric Dr. John Wong shared that the vaccination rate for the first dose is only at 4 percent while the second dose is even lower at 1 percent. “We need to get those numbers up,” he shared.
This goal, in the vein of eliminating cervical cancer, rests on three key pillars: vaccinating 90 percent of girls with the HPV vaccine by age 15, screening 70 percent of women with high-performance tests by ages 35 and 45, and treating 90 percent of women with pre-cancer and invasive cancer.
According to the WHO, cervical cancer elimination is achievable within the next decade if all countries reach and maintain an incidence rate below 4 per 100,000 women by 2030.
These statistics are what keep Lesaca optimistic. “Carers, LGUs, parents, family, patients, and survivors will agree with this song,” he says, finishing his once-in-a-lifetime set with Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
