A Study of Fingertip Blood Flow as a Lymphedema Onset Index in Lymphedema Patients Following Breast Cancer Surgery—Focusing on Differences in the Blood Flow

This research was conducted with the goals of: determining the physiological characteristics of lymphedema patients following breast cancer surgery based on the difference between the blood flow in the right and left fingertips in order to determine whether or not this simple measurement could serve as a predictive index for the occurrence of lymphedema. A total of 95 female breast cancer patients and 80 healthy females were investigated. The fingertip blood flows in all subjects were measured using a blood flowmeter, and the existence of lymphedema was taken into consideration. The results were as follows: (1) the left blood flow was greater than right blood flow in all controls, (2) there was no disparity seen in either the blood flow or the blood flow difference, for both normal women and non-edematous patients, (3) the edematous patients showed significantly higher values than the non-edematous patients in the blood flow difference percentage value. Furthermore, (4) when the blood flow difference percentage was greater than 30.0, the lymphedema occurrence ratio became 100%, while in non-edematous patients, the mean+3SD value was observed to be 29.61. In addition, when the blood flow difference was more than 7 ml/min/100 g, the lymphedema occurrence ratio increased approximately by 9 times. From the above results, the increase in the blood flow difference suggested that it could be regarded as a physiological characteristic of edematous patients, in addition to which the possibility arose that the blood flow difference could be a predictive index of lymphedema occurrence, with a cutoff value represented by a blood flow difference percentage value of 29.61 and a blood flow difference of 7 ml/min/100 g.