Empowered Patient Podcast Early Detection of Lymphedema and Value of Compression Garments After Breast Cancer Treatments with Dr. Steven Chen ImpediMed
Dr. Steven Chen, a breast surgeon and Chief Medical Officer at ImpediMed, discusses the early detection and treatment of lymphedema, a type of swelling that often occurs after breast cancer treatments. Visual observation and measurements using a tape measure are the current, inaccurate methods of determining early warning signs. The ImpediMed SOZO device measures subtle changes in time for simple interventions such as wearing compression sleeves, now covered by Medicare, which can reverse the damage. Unaddressed, this condition can lead to severe functional problems.
Steven explains, "The whole goal of ImpediMed is to help people find this when it's in stage zero or stage one when it can be reversed. It's a very simple set of treatments when you catch it early, primarily wearing a sleeve, a compression sleeve, and/or a compression glove. And with that, you can reverse almost all the stage zeros and probably somewhere between 80% to 90% of stage ones. And so you can see that if you can catch it early, this will go away with a fairly simple set of treatments."
"As you get into stage two and stage three, you're now talking about much more aggressive treatments - things like massage, pumps, and nighttime pumps to try to get the swelling down. And usually, that just provides temporary relief. It almost never goes all the way back to the way it was. Now, there are plastic surgeons and microsurgeons who have started doing things like transplanting lymph nodes to try to get more drainage. And that could be helpful as well. But again, it's rare once you get to stage two or three to see getting back to how you were before surgery."
"In stage one, you can start to have measurement differences a little bit if you use a tape measure regularly. But as you might imagine, using a tape measure regularly takes time, but it's also somewhat hard to do. If you've ever tried to measure yourself with just a fabric tape measure, you do it two or three times in a row, and you might get two or three different measurements. So, trying to measure someone every three to six months and do it with precisely the same amount of tension is fairly difficult. But I think the real primary thing is people don't realize that this happens, and if it does happen, they can turn it around. So, patients don't complain to their doctors because they don't realize it's a consequence of their treatment."
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