One of the two population-based cancer registries that the Department of Health describes as high quality, counting cancers in Rizal province and part of Metro Manila since 1974. Its records are the basis of recent studies of how long Filipino patients wait for treatment.
The Rizal Cancer Registry, based at Rizal Medical Center in Pasig City, was launched in 1974 under the Community Cancer Control Program of Rizal and covers the original province of Rizal, 1,343 square kilometres. A 2025 study using its data describes it as the country's first population-based cancer registry, spanning 26 cities and municipalities in Rizal province and the National Capital Region, about 7 million people or 8.0 per cent of the population by 2012, and collecting data actively since 1980 from 131 hospitals and 26 civil registrars. The Philippine Cancer Society dates its own tumour registry to 1968, which it redirected into a population-based registry in 1984.
The Department of Health's 2024 terminal report names it and the Philippine Cancer Society's Manila Cancer Registry as the two high-quality population-based registries that collect and share data nationally and internationally, both covering Metro Manila; registries once run in Cebu and Davao were discontinued. During the project the Rizal and Manila registries continued collecting cases diagnosed in 2018 to 2022, the Cebu and Davao registries started collecting for 2023 to 2027, and a method was proposed for linking registry cases to the Philippine Statistics Authority's death records. The registry's authors co-wrote the 2010 Philippine Cancer Facts and Estimates with the Manila registry.
In studies of its records, 35.1 per cent of 20,654 treated patients diagnosed from 1990 to 2012 waited more than 30 days from diagnosis to first treatment and 20.0 per cent more than 90 days, and among 21,740 patients diagnosed from 2000 to 2017 a wait of more than 90 days was linked to a 9 per cent higher five-year mortality risk. The coordinates are a Pasig City centroid.
It names the groups a national navigation programme would reach first if the aim is to shorten waits for treatment.
Shortening the time from diagnosis to first treatment matters most for cancers that can still be cured, which is the case the Philippines' 2019 cancer law makes for patient navigation and referral pathways.
Shares Philippine Cancer Society, Breast cancer (all types).
Shares Department of Health, Philippines, Cervical cancer, Lung cancer (all types), Breast cancer (all types).
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