Imaging Lymphatic Function in Normal Subjects and in Persons With Lymphatic Disorders

Currently, there is no method to assess lymphatic function in persons with acquired (developed following surgery or trauma) lymphedema, hereditary lymphedema or other lympho-vascular disorders. The causes of these disorders, and the means to distinguish between them, is not available from existing diagnostics. A method to monitor lymphatic function could assist in the development of new therapies, the prediction of a patient's susceptibility to develop these disorders, and the evaluation of patient's conditions or responses to therapy and treatment. In this Phase I/II trial, we inject Indocyanine Green (ICG) off-label as a lymph contrast agent and use a custom designed fluorescence imager to conduct near-infrared fluorescence imaging to dynamically follow lymphatic trafficking in subjects. Blood is also collected for DNA analysis. The resulting images are analyzed, and the phenotypes observed in both normal and diseased subjects are used to correlate to mutations of specific genes reported to be associated with lymphatic development.