Edema Overview

Edema is swelling and puffiness in the body caused by excess fluid trapped in the body’s tissues. When parts of the body are affected with edema, they are considered edematous.

It most often occurs in the feet but can also affect the skin, especially in the hands, arms, ankles, legs, and feet. However, it can also affect the muscles, bowel, lungs, eyes, and brain.

Edema can be the result of medication, pregnancy or an underlying disease, often congestive heart failure, kidney disease or cirrhosis of the liver.

Signs and Symptoms of Edema

Following are the common signs and symptoms of Edema:

  • Aches in the body and stiff joints
  • Fuller hand and neck veins
  • Puffiness of the ankles, face, or eyes
  • Reduction in urine production
  • Swelling or puffiness of the tissue directly under the skin, especially in the legs or the arms
  • Swollen, stretched or shiny skin
  • Skin that retains a dimple (pits), after being pressed for several seconds
  • Increased abdominal size
  • Unintentional Weight gain or weight loss
  • Visual abnormalities

Causes of Edema

Edema occurs when tiny blood vessels in the body (capillaries) leak fluid. The fluid builds up in surrounding tissues, leading to swelling.

Mild cases of edema may result from the following conditions:

  • Sitting or staying in one position for too long
  • Having too much salty food
  • Premenstrual signs and symptoms
  • Pregnancy

Edema can also be a side effect from some of the following medications:

In some cases, Edema can be a sign of  serious underlying medical condition. Several diseases and conditions may cause edema. Following are some of the diseases which can cause edema:

  • Damage to veins in the legs: If a patient has chronic venous insufficiency, the one-way valves in the leg veins are weakened or damaged, which allows blood to pool in the leg veins and causes swelling.Sudden onset of swelling in one leg accompanied by pain in the calf muscle can be due to a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis, or DVT) in one of the leg veins.
  • Liver Cirrhosis: Fluid may accumulate in your abdominal cavity (ascites) and in your legs as a result of liver damage (cirrhosis). 
  • Congestive heart failure: In congestive heart failure, one or both of the heart’s lower chambers lose their ability to pump blood effectively. As a result, blood can back up in the legs, ankles and feet, causing edema. 

    Congestive heart failure can also cause swelling in the abdomen. Sometimes, this condition can cause fluid to accumulate in the lungs (pulmonary edema), which can lead to shortness of breath. 

  • Kidney damage: Damage to the tiny, filtering blood vessels in the kidneys can result in nephrotic syndrome. In nephrotic syndrome, declining levels of protein (albumin) in your blood can lead to fluid accumulation and edema.
  • Inadequate lymphatic system: The body’s lymphatic system helps clear excess fluid from tissues. If this system is damaged, the lymph nodes and lymph vessels draining an area may not work correctly, and edema can occur.
  • Kidney disease: In kidney disease, extra fluid and sodium in the circulation may cause edema. The edema associated with kidney disease usually occurs in the legs and around the eyes.
  • Protein deficiency: An extreme lack (deficiency), of protein in the diet over a long period of time can lead to fluid accumulation and edema.

Biospecimens

biospecimens

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.

Moreover, human biospecimens are available including tumor tissue, serum, plasma and PBMC Samples from most other therapeutic areas.

Furthermore, Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and likewise normal healthy donors for controls. Additionally, available in all formats and types.

In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples, human biofluids such as serum samples, plasma samples from various diseases and matched controls.

Also, all our human tissue collections, human biospecimens and human biofluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.

In fact, this critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.

Additionally, researchers find the patient’s data associated with the human biospecimens extremely valuable and use it to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, as well as in other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and human biological samples, including fresh frozen human biospecimens cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.

For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as human serum, human plasma and human PBMCs.

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.

Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.

Types of Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) and human bio-fluids from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:

  • Firstly, peripheral whole-blood
  • Secondly, amniotic fluid
  • Thirdly, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL)
  • Next, sputum
  • Also, pleural effusion
  • Moreover, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
  • Likewise, serum (sera)
  • In addition, plasma
  • Moreover, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) 
  • Furthermore, saliva
  • Next, buffy coat
  • Accordingly, urine
  • For example, Stool samples
  • Also, aqueous humor
  • And, vitreous humor
  • Lastly, kidney stones (renal calculi)
  • Finally, other bodily fluids from most diseases including cancer.

Moreover, we can also procure most human biospecimens and human biofluids, special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples and human biofluids are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.

In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human biofluids such as  human plasma, human serum, and human PBMCs bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols. you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us in multiple format and sets.

Bay Biosciences also provides human biospecimens from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, Contact us Now.