CANCER-RELATED LYMPHEDEMA: OVERVIEW AND TREATMENT

Karen Ashforth, MS, OTR/L, CLT-LANA has been an occupational therapist for more than 40 years. Specializing as a board-certified hand therapist led to her interest in lymphedema and lipedema over 20 years ago. Karen’s passions in are equipment innovation and development, treatment of underlying fibrosis and inflammation, and remote care. She is considered an international expert in pneumatic compression. Karen frequently speaks in academic, clinical, and professional settings and performs clinical research that she presents and publishes nationally and internationally.

Karen has a lymphedema and lipedema practice at a hospital-based outpatient clinic in Stockton, California, and has a telehealth consultation practice at www.karenashforth.com. She is also an adjunct faculty member with the University of the Pacific in the Doctoral Physical Therapy Program.

Michael Bernas is currently the Director of the Scholarly Pursuit and Thesis 4-year research course at the TCU School of Medicine in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. For almost 30 years prior he was an Associate Scientific Investigator in the Department of Surgery at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, Arizona where he started working with Drs. Charles and Marlys Witte in the lymphology laboratories in the Department of Surgery focusing on all aspects of the lymphatic system. His work encompassed research in both basic and clinical lymphology focusing on a variety of animal lymphedema models, transgenic mice, lymphatic and blood vascular growth factors, in vitro cultures, imaging techniques of the lymphatic system, and clinical treatment trials from the research aspect. In addition, Mike is the executive editor of the International Society of Lymphology’s (ISL) journal Lymphology and has served on the Executive Committee. He is also responsible for updating and modifying the consensus document on the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral lymphedema for the ISL.

Dr. Walter Lin is a board-certified Plastic Surgeon with additional board certification in Hand Surgery, with further sub-specialization in microsurgery and lymphedema surgery.  He currently serves as the elected Chair of the Department of Surgery at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, he completed residency in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He completed additional fellowship training in Hand and Microvascular Surgery at The Buncke Clinic in San Francisco, where he joined as an attending surgeon.  He emphasizes drawing from expertise across a variety of specialized fields to provide patients with optimal care.

Key Accounts Specialist, Rehab, ImpediMed

Maureen joined ImpediMed in January 2022 as the Key Account Specialist, Rehab. In this role, she uses her 27 years’ experience as a physical therapist, specializing in lymphedema and cancer rehabilitation to promote the prospective surveillance model of care in the oncology space. Having worked with bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) technology for over twenty years, Maureen has great insight into the use of BIS for the early-intervention and prevention of chronic cancer-related lymphedema. She is passionate about implementation science and evidence-based medicine. Maureen is an active member of the lymphedema community and is a member of many organizations including: APTA, LE&RN, ISL, AVLS, NLN and ACRM. Maureen was a CLT training instructor for 15 years and still speaks at conferences and continuing education programs. Maureen has been involved in a long-term volunteer project to help advance lymphedema care in Cali, Colombia, and supports the many lymphatic advocacy efforts in the US.

Margaret (Margie) McNeely is a Professor in the Departments of Physical Therapy and Oncology at the University of Alberta, in a jointly funded position with Cancer Care Alberta. She is also the Director of the Cancer Rehabilitation Research Clinic at the University of Alberta. Her areas of methodological expertise include randomized controlled trials, impairment-based cancer rehabilitation, exercise prescription, and implementation practice. Her primary research interests involve examining physical therapy and exercise interventions for cancer-related shoulder dysfunction, peripheral nerve injury, and lymphedema. 

Michael V Paukshto, PhD, DrS.
Co-Founder & CTO of Fibralign Corporation since 2007.

He has a strong background in material science and biomedical engineering. He has more than 80 patents and more than 100 publications in the peer reviewed journals.

He was a consulting professor at Stanford University, senior scientist at Optiva Inc and Quanta Vision in South San Francisco, and visiting scientist at NSF Institute for Mechanics and Materials, UCSD, La Jolla, CA.
1987 Guest-Professor at Hamburg University, Germany
2001 Outstanding Paper Award at Int. Asia Conf. – IDW, Japan
2014 Best New Innovator Award, 11th Annual National Lymphedema Network Conference

Saskia R. J. Thiadens, RN received her nursing degree from the University of Utrecht in Holland. After immigrating to the United States, she worked at Cornell University in NY. Ms. Thiadens founded and operated the first post-operative care facility in San Francisco and, at that time, became intrigued by a patient with lymphedema who had been told that nothing could be done for her swollen limb. Shortly after (July 1987), she opened the first lymphedema clinic in the U.S. (the Aurora Lymphedema Clinic) and treated over 6,000 lymphedema patients. In 1988, Ms. Thiadens founded the National Lymphedema Network, (NLN) an internationally recognized non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and guidance to lymphedema patients, health care professionals, and the general public; as well promote research into the causes, prevention and treatment of lymphedema. Since then, she has been an active nurse/patient advocate, and has organized 11 successful international professional conferences on lymphedema and lymphatic disorders, and in Sept 2015 collaborated in the 25th World congress of Lymphology (WCOL) in San Francisco, which brought over 900 people from 39 countries together.  She has been an oncology nurse for over 25 years, a member of the Oncology Nursing Society, and the founder of The Lymphedema Management Scientific Interest Group.   She is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and key collaborator in various lymphedema studies.

IN 2018 she created a Screening and Early detection program for cancer related lymphedema at Sutter Health, Cancer Center, CPMC in San Francisco