Recent Trends and Growing Knowledge about Physiotherapy Mangement in Breast Cancer - Related Lymphedema

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor in women. Surgery often carries a lot of unwanted changesas follows: limitation of mobility in the shoulder joint on the operated side, secondary lymphoedema, reductionof muscle strength or disorders in body posture. Therefore, the implementation of physiotherapeutic activitiesthat are designed to prevent and eliminate postoperative complications seems very important. The main aim ofthis work was to present recent advances in the physiotherapeutic management in cancer treated women basedon the analysis of available literature. The purpose of the study was to analyse recent advances along with thecurrent techniques that are effective in the treatment of breast cancer related lymphedema (BCRL). The posterfocuses on spreading awareness about the recent PT management techniques to treat the problems. This study isa narrative review for which 50 articles were retrieved from different search engines out of which 8 are assessed.Articles included were published in last 5 years, included subjects with unilateral BCRL and PT interventionfor stage II BCRL and also had circumferential measurement as one of the primary outcome measure. Articlesincluding subjects with lymphedema due to any other condition, mixed approach towards lymphedema, andthose which provide inadequate knowledge about methodology were excluded. The articles analysed provedefficacy of new techniques i.e., kinesio taping, virtual reality and tele-rehabilitation in BCRL and continued tosupport the traditional methods (manual lymphatic drainage, strengthening exersices, pneumatic compression).This article is implied to spread awareness about recent trends being followed for the treatment of lymphedemaso that these techniques can be included in the physiotherapy treatment protocol.