In March 2023, the 18th St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference (SGBCC) took place in Vienna. Every two years, hundreds of delegates from all over the world come together to learn about the latest developments in the treatment of patients with breast cancer. Also during this edition, four days were filled with plenty of pioneering research in the field of breast cancer and oncology.
Our colleague Tessa De Vrieze was honored to receive the best poster award with her abstract “The effectiveness of manual lymphatic drainage in the treatment of chronic breast cancer-related lymphedema: is there an added value?”
The abstract depicts in a nutshell the outcomes of the EFforT-BCRL trial, a multi-centre randomized controlled three-group trial, in which the effectiveness of a fluoroscopy-guided manual lymphatic drainage was compared to a traditional manual lymphatic drainage, and a placebo drainage. Results of this RCT showed that there was no added value of either the fluoroscopy-guided (which was a patient-tailored) manual lymphatic drainage nor the traditional manual lymphatic drainage when applied on top of the other components of decongestive lymphatic therapy, in terms of any of the investigated clinical outcomes (i.e. volume of the arm/hand, accumulation of fluid at the shoulder/trunk, local tissue water in the arm/hand, elasticity of the skin, thickness of the skin, extracellular fluid, episodes of erysipelas, lymphatic architecture, problems in functioning and quality of life.
On May 15th 2023, results of this RCT will be orally presented during a Proffered Paper talk at the 42th ESTRO (European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology) conference, which will be held in Vienna as well.
We look forward to it!
