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The end of breast cancer treatment is caused for celebration. But for many patients, it can bring new challenges.

They can include lymphedema, a painful swelling of tissue due to excess fluid retention.

Some studies show up to 65% of women who undergo breast cancer surgery develop lymphedema.

Ali Rogan spoke with two members of the nonprofit lymphedema education and research network,

Dr. Stanley Robson of Stanford Medicine, and retired Army Colonel Susan Fondy, who's also a physician.

Thank you both so much for being here. Dr. Roxton, let's start with you. Why is lymphedema so common

among breast cancer patients? Lymphidema occurs because the lymphatic system has been damaged.

And systematically, we have to do that

both to determine the appropriate treatment for breast cancer and to curtail the cancer.

So lymph nodes are removed, but that creates damage.

80, 85% of the time that damage can be accommodated by the body, but 15% of the time it results in

malfunction. And that's what we call lymphedema. And because breast cancer is so common

among women in the United States, the numbers of people affected, even if it's only 15%, will be relatively

large. Colonel Fondi, you were diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and developed

lymphedema following your treatment. But as a physician yourself, when you were going in for

consultation, you asked questions about your risk. What did doctors at the time tell you?

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, the surgeon saw me,

...