Diagnostic Comparability of Ratio of Tissue Dielectric Constant (TDC) Between Patients with Lipedema and Those with Lower Limb Lymphedema (LLL): A Prospective Observational Study

Lipedema is usually thought of as a dis-ease of women. Potentially diagnostic comparative data is needed between patients with lip-edema and those with lower limb lymphedema (LLL). Since there is no gold standard to diagnose lipedema, some promising modalities such as Tissue Dielectric Constant (TDC) need to be investigated among patients with lipedema and lymphedema. This study was completed with a total of 26 patients (14 lipedema, 12 LLL). Local tissue water was assessed with Moisture MeterD compact (DelfinTech, Kuopio, Finland) according to the TDC method at 300 MHz within a 2.5 mm tissue penetration depth via the following reference points: Thigh, calf (20 cm upper and lower point of knee level, respectively), and malleoli (5 cm upper point of medial malleolus). Patients with LLL showed significantly higher TDC values and interlimb TDC ratios in all affected points and unaffected malleolus points compared to patients with lipedema. No significant difference was achieved between genders with LLL in all reference points. The area under the curve (AUC) for thigh, calf, and malleolus reference points were found as 0.851 (95%CI .678-1.00), 0.801 (95% CI 0.612-0.989) and 0.786 (95%CI 0.596-0.976), respectively. Patients with LLL showed significantly higher TDC values compared to patients with lipedema, these differences should be carefully interpreted in patients with bilateral LLL and those with lipo-lymphedema.