Surgery Revealed to Cure Lymphedema

Lymphedema is a condition where the lymph nodes are blocked causing the area to swell. Lymph nodes are important because they drain fluid from tissues and allow cells from the immune system to travel throughout the body. It’s a common, serious complication that is caused by treatments for breast cancer. A new surgery, however, might be able to cure this serious problem.

This surgery was pioneered by Dr. Corinne Becker. Often during breast cancer treatments, lymph nodes have to be removed from a patient’s underarm causing the lymphedema, which causes the arm to be constantly swollen and to hurt. The surgery resolves this taking lymph nodes from the patient’s groin area and transplanting them into the underarm. The trick is to take enough but not too much to cause lymphedema in the groin where the nodes were harvested. This procedure is called autologous vascularized lymph node transfer.

Despite this procedure curing some patients and improving the conditions of others, the procedure is rarely performed in the United States. There are a couple reasons for this. One, doctors tend to avoid surgery where possible and two, there has been any clinical trials to help doctors understand the risks to this procedure and who are best suited to be given this procedure. It’s also needed for insurance agencies that don’t want to cover the costs of the procedure. At the moment, the surgery is only recommended to those who haven’t been helped by conventional treatments.

Still, despite the fact that this condition is considered “incurable,” according to Dr. Becker in a paper written in 2006, 90 percent of her patients’ condition improved and almost half were cured.

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Increase in Potentially Deadly Tick Bites

It used to be that Lyme disease was the main cause for concern when someone is bitten by a tick, especially in the Northeast where tick bites are more common. However, a new infection is becoming more and more common, and it’s not as easy to detect as Lyme disease.

It’s called babesiosis and it’s an infection that presents itself very similarly to malaria. It’s a parasite the lives in red blood cells and is spread by deer ticks. Symptoms include:

  • headache
  • fever
  • fatigue
  • chills
  • sweats
  • muscle aches

Because the symptoms mimic the flu, many don’t realize they even have this infection and there are many that don’t have any symptoms at all, but for those who have compromised immune systems, an infection can be deadly.

The real problem comes with blood transfusions. It’s estimated that 30 percent of those who receive infected blood through a blood transfusion died as a result. These are not good odds. But since so many do not realize they’ve been infected, it’s easy to pass on the infection without realizing it.

When it comes down to it, there needs to be a valid test that the blood can go through to test for babesiosis. In Rhode Island, where the parasite is most common, blood centers have begun using an experimental test to screen for the parasite. For those who receive the infection through a transfusion, it can take up to nine weeks before symptoms present themselves. For that reason, patients should be informed about the parasite and its symptoms. For those who suspect they have babesiosis, there is a blood test available to confirm the diagnosis.

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Genetic Link Made in Women with Pregnancy-Related Heart Failure

A pregnant woman

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There is a rare condition in pregnant women called peripartum cardiomyopathy, which basically means pregnancy-related heart failure. Although only 1 in every 3,000 or 4,000 pregnant women will deal with this condition, it is the leading cause for deaths related to pregnancies. Finding a link is an important one.

Although this condition can often be treated with medication, some women with peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM, for short) end up needing a heart pump or a heart transplant to resolve the problem.

A team of researchers at University of Utah and the VA Hospital are investigating whether there is a genetic link, a mutation that increases the likelihood of PPCM. Well, as luck would have it, one was found — a mutation in chromosome 12.

This mutation was found in about 2/3 of the test sample, which included women who had experienced PPCM. The sooner that this condition is diagnosed, the less likely that drastic measures will be needed to handle the problem. This is one reason why it’s being studied. If a standard test can be given to women in the early stages of a pregnancy, it’s possible that women who have this mutation can be watched and helped if she has PPCM.

One reasons why researchers starting looking for a genetic link was it seemed as if the condition ran in families with daughters, sisters, and mothers all experiencing PPCM. Still there are other women who have no one in their family who experienced this problem, so it’s not always predictable. With a little more research, women in the future will less likely die from PPCM — at least that’s the hope.

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