Objective: First, is there any difference in health relatedquality of life (HRQOL) scores between breast cancer-related lymphedema (BCRL) patients and healthy controls? Second, is there anydifference in HRQOL scores of BCRL patients according to lymphedema severity? Material and Methods: The medical records of atotal of 50 healthy volunteers and 78 unilateral BCRL patients were examined between 01 January 2012 and 31 December 2018 in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Training and Research Hospital whichis a tertiary center. Age, gender, BMI, surgical interventions (modifiedradical mastectomy (MRM) + axillary lymph node dissection (ALND)or lumpectomy), chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy, pain,numbness, shoulder joint range of motion measurement, time aftersurgery, remove metastasis, metastatic lymph nodes, number ofmetastatic lymph nodes, number of resected lymph nodes, lymphedemastatus, and the SF-36 HRQOL scores of BCRL patients were notedfrom the files. Results: Seventy-eight women with BCRL and 50healthy women were included in the study. When the parameters of theSF-36 HRQOL were compared between the BCRL group and the control group; physical functioning(42.57±8.3 vs. 46.84±7.4, p=0.004),physical role functioning (38.02±12.2 vs. 44.63±10.8, p=0.001), andphysical component summary(40.47±8.4 vs. 45.30±9.7, p=0.005)scores were significantly lower in the BCRL group. Other SF-36HRQOL parameters were similar between the groups (p>0.05). Whenthe parameters of SF-36 HRQOL were compared between the lymphedema ≤ 3 cm and the lymphedema > 3 cm subgroups; all of the parameters were similar(p>0.05). Conclusion: In our study, compared tothe lymphedema and control group SF-36, physical function, physicalrole function and physical component scores in lymphedema patientswere lower and statistically significant. Interestingly, no statisticallysignificant difference was found when SF-36 scores were comparedbetween the lympedema ≤3 cm and >3 cm subgroups. These resultsshow that the presence of lymphedema is much more important than thelymphedema severity in impairing quality of life.