Mechanical lymphatic drainage in the treatment of arm lymphedema.

Exercising is one of the three cornerstones in the treatment of lymphedema together with contention mechanisms and lymphatic drainage. The aim of the current study was to evaluate a new method of mechanic lymphatic drainage. Volumetric reductions were evaluated after passive exercises in 25 patients with arm lymphedema resulting from breast cancer treatment. Their ages ranged between 42 and 86 years old. All patients were submitted to one-hour sessions using the RAGodoy electromechanical apparatus which performs from 15 to 25 elbow bending and stretching exercises per minute. Volumetry, using the water displacement technique, was performed before and after the sessions. The paired t-test was employed for statistical analysis with an alpha error of less than 5% being considered acceptable. The reduction in volume was significant (P-value < 0.001) with a mean initial volume of 2026.4 and final volume of 1967.2 giving a mean loss of 59.2 mL. The RAGodoy apparatus was efficient to reduce the volume of lymphedematous arms and is an option for the treatment of lymphedema.

Estimating genomic instability mediated by Alu retroelements in breast cancer.

Alu-PCR is a relatively simple technique that can be used to investigate genomic instability in cancer. This technique allows identification of the loss, gain or amplification of gene sequences based on the analysis of segments between two Alu elements coupled with quantitative and qualitative analyses of the profiles obtained from tumor samples, surgical margins and blood. In this work, we used Alu-PCR to identify gene alterations in ten patients with invasive ductal breast cancer. Several deletions and insertions were identified, indicating genomic instability in the tumor and adjacent normal tissue. Although not associated with specific genes, the alterations, which involved chromosomal bands 1p36.23, 1q41, 11q14.3, 13q14.2, occurred in areas of well-known genomic instability in breast and other types of cancer. These results indicate the potential usefulness of Alu-PCR in identifying altered gene sequences in breast cancer. However, caution is required in its application since the Alu primer can produce non-specific amplification.