Authors (including presenting author) :
Wong KY1, Wong SL2, Lee WM2, Lee MY2, Wong YY3, Chan WW4, Wong KY4
Affiliation :
1 Nursing Services Division, United Christian Hospital, 2 Kowloon East Cluster Breast Centre, UCH, 3 Surgical Ward, UCH; 4 Surgical Department, UCH
Introduction :
Breast cancer is the highest incidence in women, prevalence rising worldwide continuously. The incidence rate is 6-30%. The risk factors is mastectomy, axillary node dissection, increasing number of axillary nodes removed, radiation therapy and obesity. The impact of lymphoedema can harmful on the physical and psychosocial of breast cancer patients with lifelong problem. In 2021, Intensive Program of lymphedema Care was established to prevent early lymphoedema progressing to stage 2-3. The program includes education, early lymphedema screening and early treatment. The intensive care includes skin care, exercise, manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) and kinesio taping (KT). No new case of stage 3 lymphoedema is recorded in 2022. But obviously, MLD is observed as time consuming. KT is adopted as treatment method and observed to be safe and simple. In 2023, the team try to compare KT with MLD and expect KT to treat early lymphoedema with similar effect with the golden method (MLD).
Objectives :
(1)to prove the similar effect and outcome of 2 groups (KT and MLD) by the effect, efficiency, safe; (2) to calculate the average time used for caring of each groups.
Methodology :
The program was compared 2 groups (KT and MLD) to treat early stage of lymphoedema from 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2023. The inclusion criteria is all breast cancer patients after operation with lymphoedema stage 0-1. The 2 groups were arranged according to sequence of recruitment and treated with MLD or KT respectively. KT group’s patient given kinesio taping and keep for 3 days in every 2 weeks. MLD group’s patient with perform MLD for 45 minutes in every 2 weeks. All 2 groups are educated to continue lymphoedema care. A self-adminitrated questionnaire with five-point Likert scale was used to record the sign of lymphedema at the baseline and the final session. The discharge criteria is L-Dex below 10 and no sign of lymphedema.
Result & Outcome :
The effect of both treatment (n of KT=10; n of MLD=11) are similar. The treatment of both groups can be completed from 3-18 weeks. No injury or harmful of both groups has been reported. Most KT patient can be discharged less than 6 weeks. The efficiency of KT is comparatively high [KT: 75% (6/8); MLD: 50% (3/6)]. The clinic session and time for KT are apparently low. The clinic session time for each KT case require 15mins and for MLD require 45mins. Averaged time (mean) to complete the treatment of KT group is 60mins and of MLD group is 195mins. The finding of KT seen to be the more effective, efficient, safe method and low consultation time to manage early stage lymphoedema.
