Upper limb volume assessment is the first step in lymphedema diagnosis and rehabilitative management. Circumferential method (CM), the most commonly used limb volumetric method, showed several limitations in common clinical rehabilitation practice and recently a new method using three-dimensional laser scanning (LS3D) has been proposed for limb volume measurement and validated by our group in healthy subjects. Aim of this study was to verify the reproducibility and reliability of LS3D compared to CM in upper limb volume measurement in women affected by breast cancer related lymphedema (BCRL).

We included young women (aged>18 and<45 years) affected by BCRL, with normal weight (BMI>18 and<25kg/m²). Two raters randomly performed both LS3D and CM upper limb volume evaluation twice in each subject (the mean value of the two CM and LS3D evaluations was used) at baseline and at the end of the rehabilitative lymphedema treatment. CM assessments were performed by two expert lymphotherapists with more than 20 years of experience in lymphedema treatment and blinded to other rater's assessments.

Ten BCRL patients, mean aged 54.3±10.2 years have been enrolled. Both LS3D and CM showed a significant inter and intra-operator correlation in upper limb volume measurement (r²=0.99; P<0.0001). LS3D showed a strong correlation with CM (r²=0.99; P<0.0001); moreover LS3D was significantly quicker in upper limb volume measurement than CM (195±24s vs 258±19s; P<0.0001).

Results of this small pilot study suggest that LS3D seems to be a highly reproducible, reliable and easy to use method to evaluate upper limb volume in BCRL patients, as previously evidenced in healthy subjects. Our results suggest a potential implementation of LS3D as a useful tool in lymphedema common clinical rehabilitation practice. Future investigations should address its reliability and reproducibility in different stages of lymphedema.