What are the things that are done to try to prevent the occurrence of lymphedema with radiation?
The primary goal of radiation therapy is to make sure that the carcinoma (cancer) does not come back. The worse possible outcome is treatment failure. Radiation fields and ports are determined by the location of the disease. If you need treatment in the axilla because there were several positive lymph nodes, or, if you need radiation therapy above the collarbone because there might be microscopic disease there, we are going to go ahead and treat those areas. There is nothing that we can do to avoid individual lymph nodes and still treat the cancer that might exist in the lymph nodes. Because of this, we end up needing to treat in areas where we know there is a risk for increasing the chance of developing lymphedema. The biggest thing that we try to do as clinicians is teaching about the prevention (risk reduction practices) of lymphedema as well as monitor for swelling during the treatment and follow up.
