Assessment of Breast Cancer-Related Arm Lymphedema

Breast cancer is a common malignant disease that threatens the health of women.As a serious chronic condition from breast cancer treatment, lymphedema, is caused by chronic accumulation of lymph fluid in the interstitial spaces of the affected limb or surrounding areas.Reported prevalence of lymphedema following treatment for breast cancer varies, ranging from 7-45% One reason for the wide variation in the reported incidence of lymphedema is the different measurement techniques used and the absence of an agreed diagnostic criteria. Nowadays, the common method include limb circumference measurement、limb volume measurement、bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) and self-report.Each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages . As a new method for detecting lymphedema ，some study have shown indocyanine green（ICG）lymphography can have a certain value for the detection of subclinical edema。Early detection demonstrate the greatest promise of reducing the incidence of late-stage lymphedema in breast cancer patients undergoing surgery.The aim of this study was therefore to examine the relationships between the most commonly used measures of lymphedema and the respective reliability of each of these tools. And if it's possible ,investigators are going to test which method is more sensitive for the diagnosis of clinical and subclinical lymphedema as well as the value of indocyanine green（ICG）in detecting sub-clinical lymphedema.