American Association of Plastic Surgeons

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Utilization of an Infrared 3D Scanner for the Assessment of Breast Cancer Related Lymphedema
Nicole K Le, MD, MPH1, Kristen Whalen, MD1, Luba Ayzenshtat, MPH2, D’Arcy Wainwright, MD1, Jocelyn Blatchley, OTR/L, CLT-LANA3, Tina Tavares, RN3, Nicholas J Panetta, MD1
1University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA, 2Tampa General Hospital, Tampa, FL, USA, 3Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL, USA

Purpose Breast cancer related lymphedema (BCRL) is a progressive and debilitating disease affecting 20-44% of patients undergoing axillary lymph node dissections (ALND). Surveillance of BCRL includes circumferential limb measurements which can be clinically time consuming and provider technique dependent. We aimed to assess the accuracy of an infrared 3D scanner to obtain limb volume measurements.Methods Patients had limb volumes assessed both by physical measurements and the 3D scanner in multidisciplinary lymphedema clinics between June and August 2023. The scanner used was the LymphaTech 3D Imaging System (LymphaTech, Atlanta, GA). The volume percentage difference was obtained for each patient comparing their unaffected limb to the limb with an ALND. A paired t-test and correlation analyses were performed using R version 4.2.1.Results A total of 53 patients were included in this cohort study. The mean volume percentage difference for the 3D scanner was 11.7±16.0 compared to 9.8±15.0 (p=0.04) for the physical measurement. The volume percentage difference between the 3D scanner and physical measurements were highly correlated (0.91, p<0.01). The average difference between the two measurements was 1.86 with a 95% confidence interval between -14.405 and 10.684. At a 95% confidence level, there is not a significant difference in the mean volume % difference between the 3D scanner and physical measurements.Conclusions While the 3D scanner measurements were statistically different from the physical measurements, a 1.86% difference between is not clinically significant. With appropriate training, 3D scanners can be effectively incorporated in the clinic flow for early detection of BCRL.


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