| Polat et al. (9) |
2019 |
16 patients with clinical lymphedema, 10 with latent lymphedema and 15 healthy participants |
Ultrasound B-mode images |
Shear wave elastography (SWE) |
Skin and subcutaneous thickness and shear wave velocity (SWV) |
None |
Diagnosis |
In latent and clinical lymphedema patients the thickness and stiffness measurements in the affected limb were increased compared to non-affected limb |
| Hashemi et al. (10) |
2019 |
7 patients with stage 2 lymphedema |
Quasi-static ultrasound elastography |
Global ultrasound elastography (GLUE2) |
Strain ratio (SR): the ratio of strain in skin, subcutaneous fat, and skeletal muscle divided by strain in the standoff gel pad |
None |
Assessment |
Differences in the SR between affected and non-affected arms were found for skin, subcutaneous fat, skeletal muscle (P<0.05). SR was lower in the affected arm |
| Erdogan Iyigun et al. (11) |
2019 |
36 patients with stage 1 (n=17) or 2 lymphedema (n=19) |
Ultrasound (Acuson S 3000 US®) |
SWE |
SWV |
Circumference measurements and bioimpedance (L-DEX U400) |
Diagnosis staging |
Correlation between circumference measurements and elastography values of forearms (P<0.05), and L-DEX scores and elastography measurements (P<0.05) were found. A significant difference between patients with stage 1 and 2 lymphedema was demonstrated (P<0.05), and stage 2 and normal forearms (P<0.01), however, no difference was found between stage 1 and normal forearms |
| Yang et al. (12) |
2017 |
2 patients with arm lymphedema post breast-cancer radiotherapy; 2 healthy patients |
Ultrasound B-mode images |
Two-dimensional strain imaging, using a combined affine and B-spline transformation model |
Contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) |
Cross-correlation-based elastography method |
Assessment |
This registration-based strain method increased significantly the SNR and CNR compared with the common elastography method. The mean strain value of the arms affected with lymphedema was 1.5 times higher than those of the normal arms. The mean strain value of affected arms was 2.8 times higher than the healthy patients |
