Progressive Loss of Lymphatic Vessels in Skin of Patients with Systemic Sclerosis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disorder characterized by microvascular and fibrotic changes in the skin and internal organs. The role of blood vessel dysfunction in the pathogenesis of SSc has been extensively investigated, but few studies have addressed the involvement of the lymphatic vascular system. Our aim was to evaluate dermal lymphatic vessels in patients with SSc according to different phases of skin involvement. METHODS: Skin biopsies were obtained from the forearm of 25 SSc patients (10 early/15 late-stage disease) and 13 healthy controls. Skin sections were immunostained for podoplanin (D2-40), which is selectively expressed in lymphatic endothelial cells, and examined by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Lymphatic vessels were counted in the papillary and reticular dermis. Data were analyzed using Student's t test. RESULTS: The number of lymphatic vessels was significantly reduced in the papillary and reticular dermis of SSc patients compared with controls. In early SSc, lymphatic vessel counts were not different from controls in the papillary dermis, and showed a trend toward a reduction in the reticular dermis. In late SSc, a significant reduction in lymphatic vessels compared with controls was found in both the papillary and reticular dermis. The number of lymphatic vessels in the papillary dermis of late SSc was significantly lower than in early SSc. CONCLUSION: In SSc, lymphatic microangiopathy is linked to the progression of skin involvement. The progressive disappearance of lymphatic vessels may have a critical pathogenetic role in the progression of SSc from an early edematous phase to overt fibrosis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".