Molecular Mechanism and Targeted Therapy of Lymphedema
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pathology, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 52
Special Issue Editors
Interests: lymphangiogenesis; inflammatory regulation; immune responses; fibrosis; secondary lymphedema; T cells; lymphatic trafficking
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Lymphedema (LE) is a chronic, debilitating condition causing swelling, pain, and infection risk, affecting millions worldwide, especially cancer survivors. It's often underdiagnosed, and current treatments are limited. More research is needed to understand its molecular drivers and develop effective therapies.
A signififcant progress has been made in the past decade in LE research leading to understanding the role of chronic inflammtion in driving the pathology. Both innate and adaptive immune responses are found to be involved and especially Th2 differentiated CD4+ T cells are found to be the major cause of the lympahtic dysfunction, fibrosis. Preclinical models directly targeting the CD4+ T cells, Th2 cytokines, TGF-b signaling (fibrosis), Luekotrienue B4 siganling showed promising results that needs to be escalated to clinical level.
In addition, Surgical interventions like lymph node transplantation and lymph venous bypass offer potential for reversing lymphedema pathology. These procedures emphasize the need for advanced pre-surgical lymphatic imaging, innovative surgical techniques, and improved methods for evaluating surgical outcomes.
This Special Issue aims to summarize our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlining the pathophysiology of secondary lymphedema and how this knowledge is used in designing novel targerted therapies to treat lymphedema.
Dr. Raghu P. Kataru
Dr. Geoffrey E. Hespe
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- secondary lymphedema
- breast cancer related lymphedema
- chronic CD4+ T cell inflammtion Th2 driven fribrosis
- lymphatic pathophysiology
- tissue fibrosis
- lymphovenous bypass
- lymph node transplanatation
- targeted therapies
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