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Introduction: Breast cancer survivors with secondary upper limb lymphoedema (ULL) may report a wide range of self-reported symptoms. At the moment, no overview of ULL-specific symptoms is available. The first aim, therefore, was to compare the prevalence rates of self-reported signs and symptoms in people with and without secondary ULL due to breast cancer treatment. The second aim was to determine whether symptoms of lymphoedema could be predictive for the development of ULL. The third aim was to describe the association between the presence/severity of symptoms and the presence/severity of ULL., Methods: A systematic search was conducted in Medline, Scopus, CINAHL and EMBASE databases, with key words related to breast cancer, symptoms and ULL., Results: Twenty-nine articles were eligible. The most frequently reported signs and symptoms were swelling (80.9%) and heaviness (66.7%) in the ULL group and tenderness (37%) and numbness (27%) in the non-ULL group. Perceived larger arm size, as well as feelings of arm tightness, stiffness, puffiness, pain, sensory disturbances and functional changes were predictive for the development of ULL. Moderate correlations were found between the presence of swelling, firmness in the past year and tightness now and severity of ULL. There was also moderate correlation between the presence of swelling and heaviness now and the presence of ULL., Conclusions: Swelling and heaviness are the most commonly reported symptoms in patients with ULL. The presences of these two symptoms are moderately correlated with the presence and/or severity of ULL. Although limited information regarding the predictive self-reported symptoms for the development of ULL was found. Further research with standardised definitions of ULL and validated questionnaires for self-reported signs and symptoms are needed to confirm which signs and symptoms are related to ULL and which to other upper limb morbidities., (© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Objective: To perform the cross-cultural validation process of the Dutch Norman Questionnaire (NQ), a questionnaire for the detection and characterisation of breast-cancer related lymphoedema (BCRL) using self-reported signs and symptoms., Methods: Test-retest reliability and construct (including convergent, divergent and known-groups validity), face and content validity were examined in breast cancer patients with (n = 30) and without (n = 30) lymphoedema. For concurrent validity, first, agreement between the diagnostic item of the NQ and a clinical diagnosis were analysed. Second, correlations between NQ scores and clinical arm volume assessment were tested., Results: Test-retest reliability was found to be strong to very strong (ICC 0.79-0.96) in the lymphoedema group and moderate to very strong ( ICC 0.64-0.99) in the non-lymphoedema group. Seventeen out of 20 hypotheses on convergent and divergent validity were accepted. There was good face, content and known-groups validity as well. For concurrent validity, agreement between evaluation methods was only 0.462. Moderate correlations were found between 6 out of 9 symptom scores (r = 0.422-0.630) of the NQ and clinical assessment., Conclusion: The Dutch NQ is a reliable and valid questionnaire for the characterisation of BCRL using self-reported signs and symptoms. Only moderate agreement for the detection of BCRL was found., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)