Back to Basics: What We Still Need to Learn, and What We Will Need for the Future
More than 25 years ago, I got a call from a woman who introduced herself as an engineer and said, “I hear you have a lot of lymphedema patients.” Boy, did I have a lot of lymphedema patients! I had already been running a wound center at the Texas Medical Center in Houston for several years and had decided that non-healing wounds were a very fixable problem. However, the unfixable problem for a huge percentage of my patients was lymphedema. Somehow, they found their way to the wound center, and I was trying to “figure it out,” thanks to a group of amazing lymphedema therapists. I was even seeing babies and small children with lymphedema. I discovered to my amazement that even the simplest questions about the pathophysiology of lymphatic dysfunction were largely unanswerable. Dr. Eva Sevick explained that she had developed a method of imaging the lymphatics in real time. She could provide the technology if I could provide the patients. That was the beginning of a journey of medical discovery that was becoming rare at the end of the 20th century – being the first to visualize the lymphatics as they worked and figuring out the “why” of lymphatic malfunction.
Eva went on to identify the mechanism by which the cerebrospinal fluid drains via the lymphatic system and is now researching the brain lymphatics and their relationship to neurological disorders. She is one of 3 well-known speakers including Guenter Klose and Shelley DiCecco, at an upcoming Lymphedema Seminars virtual workshop for lymphedema therapists on October 3, 2026, entitled, “Back to Basics: What We Still Need to Learn, and What We Will Need for the Future.” You don’t want to miss Eva’s presentation, “Update on Research of Developing Lymphatics in the Brain.” You can register here: https://lymphseminars.com/registration-10-3-26/
Here’s a link to past blog posts about lymphatic imaging.
Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes through quality driven care. Please visit my blog at CarolineFifeMD.com and my Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/carolinefifemd/videos
The opinions, comments, and content expressed or implied in my statements are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the position or views of Intellicure or any of the boards on which I serve.
