f.) Cancer rehabilitation refers to a program that helps people with cancer maintain and
restore physical and emotional well-being. Cancer rehabilitation is available before,
during and after cancer treatment;
g.) Cancer screening refers to the detection of cancer before symptoms start to appear.
This may involve blood tests, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests, urine tests and other
tests such as medical imaging;
h.) Cancer survivorship refers to the period starting at the time of disease diagnosis and
continues throughout the rest of the patient’s life. Family, carers, and friends are also
considered survivors. Survivorship care has three (3) distinct phases: living through,
with, and beyond cancer;
i.) Cancer treatment refers to the series of interventions that are aimed at curing the
disease and improve the patient’s quality of life, such as psychological and nutritional
support, surgery, radiotherapy, radioisotope therapy, and drug therapy, which includes
chemotherapy, hormonotherapy, biotherapeutics, immunotherapy, gene therapy and
supportive therapy;
j.) Carer refers to anyone who provides care for cancer patients and family members;
k.) Comprehensive cancer care center refers to a care center that is multidisciplinary
and integrates clinical care, education and research to accelerate the control and cure
of cancer;
l.) Continuum of care refers to delivery of comprehensive health care services, which
includes risk assessment, primary prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment,
survivorship and end-of-life care;
m.) Hospice care refers to the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill or seriously ill
patient’s pain and symptoms, otherwise known as end-of-life care that consists of
medical, psychological and spiritual support;
n.) Psychosocial support progam refers to the assistance on nonmedical costs such as
financial assistance, transient housing, transportation, food and nutrition and the like;
o.) Management of late effects refers to the management of effects that occur months or
years after cancer treatment;
p.) Metastasis refers to the spread of cancer cells from the place where they first formed
to new areas of the body often by way of the lymph system or bloodstream;
q.) Multidisciplinary patient care refers to an integrated approach to cancer care in
which medical and allied health care professionals consider all relevant treatment
options and develop collaboratively an individual treatment plan for each patient;
r.) National Integrated Cancer Control Program refers to the program of the national
government for the comprehensive and integrated control of cancer in the Philippines;
s.) Notifiable disease refers to a disease that, by legal requirements, must be reported
to the public health authority when the diagnosis is made;
t.) Optimal treatment and care refers to a quality treatment care that adheres to the
standards of treatment and care based on evidence-based guidelines;
u.) Palliative care refers to an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and
their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the
prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable
assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and
spiritual;
v.) Patient navigation refers to individualized assistance, through all the phases of
cancer experience, offered to patients, families and carers to help overcome health care
system barriers and facilitate timely access to quality medical and psychosocial care
beginning from pre-diagnosis and extending throughout the continuum of care;
w.) Patient care pathway refers to the route that a patient shall take from their first
contact with the health worker, through referral, to the completion of their treatment. It
also covers the period from entry into a hospital or a health care facility, until the patient
leaves;
x.) Secondary cancer refers to either a secondary primary cancer or to cancer that has
spread from one part of the body to another (metastatic cancer); and
y.) Supportive care refers to prevention and management of the adverse effects of
cancer and its treatment which includes management of physical and psychological
symptoms and side effects across the continuum of the cancer experience.
ARTICLE II
THE NATIONAL INTEGRATED CANCER CONTROL PROGRAM
SECTION 4. National Integrated Cancer Control Program. – There is hereby
established a National Integrated Cancer Control Program which shall serve as the