Exercise interventions for patients with breast cancer related lymphedema

Background and aims: Lymphedema following breast cancer surgery remains a common and feared treatment complication. The aim of this study was to find high level evidences(systematic reviews) about the role of exercise interventions in prevention and treatment of breast cancer relatedLymphedema . Methods: We searched Pubmed and Cochrane databases from beginning until 2015-01-01 for English language systematic reviews related to Exercise interventions for breast cancer related Lymphedema .Keywords are lymphoedema, breast cancer and exercise. Results: We found six systematic reviews (one in Cochrane and five in pubmed database). The quality of the primary RCTs in the included systematic reviews was variable. According to the findings of these reviews , early rather than delayed onset of exercise training did not affect the incidence ofpostoperative lymphoedema, but early introduction of exercises was valuable in avoiding deterioration in range of shoulder motion . Strong evidence is now available on the safety of resistance exercise without an increase in risk of lymphedema for breast cancer patients. No exacerbation of objectively measured or subjectively reported lymphedema symptoms was reported with upper body progressiveresistance training with or without aerobic training. In one review, it was concluded that the literature contains no evidence to suggest the most effective treatment for secondary lymphedema. In other review, self instigated therapies such as compression garment wear, exercise and limb elevation yielded smaller reductions in arm lymphedema than the more intensive and health profession al based therapies,such as complex physical therapy, manual lymphatic drainage, pneumatic pump and laser therapy. Conclusion: Although early exercise in the post-operative period may not prevent of postoperative lymphoedema, early implementation of exercises for prevention of loss of shoulder range of motion is important. Further high quality research studies are needed.

Keywords:

are lymphoedema , breast cancer , exercise