St. Luke's QC opens streamlined cancer center

St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City has opened its Cancer Specialty Center, a facility designed to provide a streamlined system and coordinated approach to cancer treatment.

To improve efficiency and reduce the need for patients to visit multiple specialists separately, the center brings together oncology experts to ensure accurate and timely care, from diagnosis to treatment.

“It’s very hard when you have multiple specialties or multiple lines of specialties of doctors and then they do not meet each other regularly. And then the patient, they have to jump from one doctor to the other,” said St. Luke’s Medical Center Cancer Institute head Rubi Li.

The center features a triage clinic for initial assessments, dedicated family conferences, and specialty clinics where multidisciplinary teams collaborate on patient cases. “So the core of subspecialties are basically the surgeon, the medical oncologist, and the radiation oncologist,” Li added.

It focuses on several types of cancer, including bone malignancies and sarcoma, neuroendocrine tumors, lymphoma, breast cancer, thoracic malignancies, colorectal cancer, and hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancers. 

Additionally, advanced technologies and equipment such as PET scans, radiation treatment facilities, and robotic-assisted surgery will be utilized.

While the center focuses on diagnosed cancer patients, it also has a unit for undiagnosed cases, providing a specific pathway prioritizing them.