Understanding the therapeutic approaches to lymphedema.

Despite recent advances in the treatment of lymphedema, a satisfactory and uniformly effective method for its control has not yet been developed. Surgical and nonsurgical modalities in treatment have been employed for many years without uniform success or, at best, only partially successful. Lymphedema may occur as a transient or a permanent phenomenon. As far as the transient lymphedema is concerned, the problem is simple and requires no radical or complicated treatment because once the etiology is corrected resolution of the lymph stasis will follow. We are, however, more concerned with the permanent type of lymphedema. Two main forms may be observed; on one hand is the congenital malformation of the lymphatic