Breast cancer treatment-related lymphedema (BCRL) is a common comorbidity in breast cancer survivors. Although magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used to evaluate therapeutic response of patients with various medical conditions, it is not routinely used to evaluate lymphedema patients. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to identify studies on the use of MRI to evaluate therapy for BCRL. We hypothesized that MRI could provide information otherwise not possible through other examinations. On October 21, 2019, we conducted a systematic review on the PubMed/MEDLINE and Scopus databases, without time frame or language limitations, to identify studies on the use of MRI to evaluate therapy for BCRL. We excluded studies that investigated other applications of MRI, such as lymphedema diagnosis and surgical planning. Of 63 potential articles identified with the search, three case series fulfilled the eligibility criteria. In total, 53 patients with BCRL were included and quantitatively evaluated with MRI before and after manual lymphatic drainage. Authors used MRI or MR lymphagiography to investigate factors such as lymphatic vessel cross-sectional area, tissue water relaxation time (T2), and chemical exchange saturation transfer. The only study that compared MRI measurement with standard examinations reported that MRI added information to the therapy evaluation. MRI seems to be a promising tool for quantitative measurement of therapeutic response in patients with BCRL. However, the identified studies focused on only manual lymphatic drainage and were limited by the small numbers of patients. More studies are necessary to shed light on the topic.
Keywords: Breast cancer lymphedema; Lymphedema; Magnetic resonance imaging.