[Manual lymph drainage as therapy of edema in the head and neck area]

Depending on its genesis, edema must be treated by medication or diet. Simultaneous application of lymph drainage may be beneficial in some cases, especially in combined edema. The manual lymphdrainage is a special method of massage. In some kinds of edema, in particular lymphedema, only therapeutic lymph drainage introduced into medicine by Vodder, Asdonk and Kuhnke can attain an improvement, since there is no drug which acts on the lymphatic system. We report about primary and secondary lymphedemas of the face and head. Secondary lymphedemas are a result of surgical therapy, cancer therapy, irradiation or are caused of tumors or their metastases respectively. Depending on the state of the edema a lymphatic drainage treatment is indicated palliatively.