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| |  Lymphedema Continues to Appear Years After Breast Cancer Treatment: Presented at SABCS By Ed Susman SAN ANTONIO, Tex -- December 11, 2009 -- The risk of developing lymphedema can continue for at least 30 months following definitive treatment for breast cancer, researchers stated here today at the 32nd Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). In the unique study design, women undergoing treatment for breast cancer were measured prior to treatment to determine which women met the criteria for lymphedema before undergoing therapy, and therefore could be eliminated from the study. “That [helped] prevent discrepancies in reporting the impact of lymphedema seen in other studies,” said Robin Shook, Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, during his poster presentation. Depending on the type of measurement employed before treatment, the occurrence rates of lymphedema increased from 10% to 27% in the 18 months that followed 1-year post treatment, he said. “These preliminary findings provide additional evidence that breast cancer survivors are at a risk for developing lymphedema beyond the first year of treatment,” he said. His report described outcomes in 211 of the 300 women participating in the ongoing study. The average age of the women in the trial was 57 years; 48% of them had undergone mastectomies; 39% had undergone lumpectomies; and 115 had both treatments. About 16% of the women did not have any axillary exploration; 43% had sentinel node biopsies performed; 30% underwent axially node dissection; 11% had sentinel node and axillary dissections. Women were assessed for lymphedema every 3 months for the first year and then every 6 months for a total of 30 months. Shook said 4 different methods of identifying lymphedema were used in the study, with the most conservative method proving to be a self-report of limb heaviness and swelling. Using that criterion 41% of the women experienced lymphedema -- 10% more than reported the problem after 1 year. The most liberal definitive was a 2 cm circumferential change in any part of the limb measured. Under that criterion 91% of women reported lymphedema at the end of 30 months, 19% more than after 1 year. Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health and the Missouri University PRIME Fund. [Presentation title: Occurrence of Lynphedema Continues to Increase Twelve Months After Breast Cancer Treatment. Abstract 2070]
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