Upcoming Drug Breakthroughs for Lymphedema!

Meggy, thanks! All good stuff! Hope is absolutely priceless! (Five years, huh? Let's see, that's 5 more extra-hot summers; 1,825 more nights of oven-mitt garments; 10 more every-six-months garment orders, and then...free at last!  Hey! I can do this!)

Actually, the inflammation control is the main event for me. That's because they're saying that LE is an inflammatory response in the first place, and the hardening that happens when LE progresses is caused by inflammation too. So that drug alone may prevent future secondary (caused by damage to the lymph system) LE and prevent progression of our lymphedema to fibrosis.

The drug that grows new lymphatic pathways may eventually be of special help to people who are dealing with primary lymphedema (an in-born lymphatic disorder) or those with secondary lymphedema caused by trauma other than any kind of cancer surgery. A new cancer drug, Avastin (bevacizumab), is in trials for early-stage breast cancer because it SLOWS the regeneration of blood vessels (and lymphatic vessels), because inhibiting growth of these vessels prevents tumors from growing. Introducing medications that acturally ENCOURAGE vessel growth presents special problems for those of us who have already had cancer. The hope for that one lies in their finding a way to control the regrowth with total accuracy. At the moment, growth of lymphatics in animals using these drugs is chaotic and uncontrolled, so the challenges involve being able to control the growth so that it's carefully structured and not rampant, and so that it does NOT encourage growth of new lymphatics in tumors. So, for that drug, it's going to take a lot longer than five years. HUGE puzzle -- that one's a long way off, at least for us bc veterans.

Dr. Rockson is one of our research heroes -- yea, Dr. Rockson!

Hugs, Meggy!
Binney

Did Dr. Rockson tell you the names of the drugs?  

If you think about the supplements that are said by some to improve lymphedema (butcher's broom, horse chestnut extract, pine bark extract, selenium), they all have anti-inflammatory properties.  KS1

Very interesting!  My physiatrist has had me on high dose celebrex (a Cox-2 inhibitor NSAID) for the last 9 months because, post surgery & radiation, I developed a golf-ball sized axillary granuloma that pressed on my brachial plexus.  I see him this week and will ask him what he thinks about  ketoprofen vs. celebrex.  KS1

Ditto - I'd love to know if these drugs are near market yet!

The ketoprofen study seems to have disappeared--maybe there were problems with its long-term or high-dose side-effects, but it's dropped out of sight.

The VEGF-C study is not being permitted in the US because of potential dangers--the idea of this drug is that it causes lymph vessels to proliferate, and there are two problems with that. First, there's no way to control the proliferation in an organized way. And second, cancer tumors require lymph vessels in order to activate and grow, so you don't really want to encourage a whole lot of new lymph vessel growth in an area at risk of cancer recurrence. The VEGF-C drug, called Lympfactin, is made by a company in Finland, so that's where they were proposing to launch a Phase I Study, but that too has either been stalled or gone underground. Hoping for word soon on what's going on with all this.

Nothing's ever easy, is it?

Binney