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Background: As cancer and its therapy comes with a wide range of negative effects, people look for options to mitigate these effects. Reflexology is among the options of complementary medicine. Method: In March 2022 a systematic search was conducted searching five electronic databases (Embase, Cochrane, PsychInfo, CINAHL and Medline) to find studies concerning the use, effectiveness and potential harm of reflexology on cancer patients. Results: From all 821 search results, 29 publications concerning 26 studies with 2465 patients were included in this systematic review. The patients treated with reflexology were mainly diagnosed with breast, lung, gastrointestinal and hematological cancer. Outcomes were mainly pain, quality of life, anxiety, depression, fatigue. The studies had moderate to low quality and reported heterogeneous results: Some studies reported significant improvements in above mentioned outcomes while other studies did not find any changes concerning these endpoints. Conclusion: Due to the very heterogeneous results and methodical limitations of the included studies, a clear statement regarding the effectiveness of reflexology on cancer patients is not possible. The current evidence indicates that reflexology is superior to passive control groups for pain, quality of life and fatigue, however, more studies with comparable active control groups are needed.

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Purpose: In breast cancer, the lymph node status is of prognostic importance and a decisive factor in therapy planning. This study shows the distribution of lymph nodes metastases of node-positive breast cancer patients. Risk factors for lymph node metastases are described.Methods: 2095 patients with primary breast cancer were analyzed. Analysis included descriptive analysis (median, standard deviation, ranges) and statistical analysis (Chi², discriminant analysis).Results: The nodal stage was positive in 39.4% of all patients and negative in 60.6%. If the nodal stage was positive, only 1 lymph node was involved in 36% of the patients; more than 1 lymph node was involved in 64% of the patients. With an increasing number of lymph node metastases in level I, the probability of an involvement in level III also increases (F 437.845, p = .000). Other indicators are evidence of hemangiosis (F 247.728, p = .000) or lymphangiosis (F 167.368, P = .000). Despite <10 affected lymph nodes, 3.4% of the patients had nodal stage N3 due to level III involvement.Conclusion: Even with only a small number of lymph node metastases in level I higher lymphatic stations are often affected. The data cannot lead to a decision regarding an operation or radiation indication, but they can better substantiate the risk for certain therapy decisions.