Dr Divina Esteban: A Tribute

Dr Divina Esteban, a pioneer of cancer registration in the Philippines (and, indeed, in South-Eastern Asia) died on February 20^th, 2020.

Divina qualified in medicine at University of Manila, and later specialized in medical oncology, taking a fellowship at Philippine General Hospital (Manila) and becoming an active clinician, rising to leadership positions in the Philippine Society of Medical Oncology. Working in Rizal Medical Centre, she helped to found in 1974 the Department of Health – Rizal Cancer Registry (DOH-RCR), the first population-based cancer registry in the Philippines,  as one of the activities of the Community Cancer Control Programme of the province of Rizal, and acted as its medical Director for 30 years.

The Rizal Cancer Registry contributed data for 1978-1982  to Cancer Incidence in Five Continents Volume V, and to subsequent volumes, and with IARC, she was a co-author of the first volume of Cancer in Philippines, an early IARC Technical Report (No. 5, published in 1989). The registry also contributed to the first two volumes of “Cancer Survival in Developing Countries”.

Because of its pioneering status, Rizal registry acted as a training centre for staff from other registries in Philippines, and other countries in the region, notably from Thailand and Vietnam. Her expertise as a trainer was recognized in the volume she co-authored with IARC’s Sharon Whelan- the Manual for Cancer Registry Personnel (IARC Technical Report No. 10) in 1995.

Divina was an active member of the IACR, and participated in numerous annual meetings in the 1980’s and 90’s. She retired from the Rizal Medical Center and thus also from the Rizal registry in 2004. She was succeeded by Dr Rica Lumague, a surgeon.

Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa

In time with the African Cancer Registry Network (AFCRN)'s 2018 Annual Review Meeting held on Oct 8-10 in Entebbe, Uganda, IARC and AFCRN published Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa.

IARC Publication 167, 2018, includes the latest cancer data for the region. The Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa volume brings together population-based cancer incidence data from 25 cancer registries in 20 sub-Saharan African countries that are part of the African Cancer Registry Network. The compiled data in this volume, presented and commented upon by covered population and by anatomical site, are of tremendous value to the assessment of the pattern and evolution of cancer in Africa, as a means of elucidating, confirming, and evaluating causes of the disease.

2022 IACR Honorary Member Awardees

IACR, at the Virtual IACR Scientific Conference held on 8-10 November 2022, awarded honorary memberships to Dr Brenda Edwards (USA) and Dr Stefano Rosso (Piedmont, Italy) for their exemplary contributions to the Association and in the field of cancer registration and surveillance.

Brenda Edwards, US National Cancer Institute 

ICD-O-3.2

ICD-O-3.2

The IARC/WHO ICD-O Committee¹ has updated the draft ICD-O-3.1 classification, with new morphology codes and terms from the 4^th series of WHO Classification of Tumours (Blue Books). The IACR Working Group on ICD-O Updates² has compiled a listing of additions, changes and revisions between ICD-O-3.1 and ICD-O-3.2 as a reference material for cancer registries.

Both documents have been revised according to the comments received during the consultation period and the final Excel tables are available for download in our Support for registries pages.

The ICD-O-3.2 book in pdf format is in preparation. We would like to thank all registries and individuals for comments provided to the draft versions.

¹ Ian Cree, Jacques Ferlay, Robert Jakob, Brian Rous, Reiko Watanabe, Valerie White, Ariana Znaor
² Atul Budukh, Jacques Ferlay, Keri Green, Tomohiro Matsuda, Brian Rous, Ariana Znaor