SP55. Cognitive Symptoms and Lymphedema: Investigating the Connection
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: Primary lymphedema is often misconstrued as a localized disorder; however, it represents a systemic condition characterized by systemic lymphatic insufficiency, which can progressively affect various body regions. In addition to its more recognized manifestations such as swelling in the extremities, trunk, and face, emerging evidence suggests that primary lymphedema also impacts cognitive function. This study aims to explore the relationship between primary lymphedema and cognitive function by evaluating brain fog symptoms and cognitive performance using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the Brain Fog Scale (BFS). METHODS: A total of 81 patients diagnosed with primary lymphedema (67 females, 14 males, mean age: 44.72 ± 18.02) was enrolled in the study. Cognitive function was assessed using the MoCA, with a cut-off score of <26 indicating mild cognitive impairment. Brain fog symptoms were assessed using the BFS, which includes measures of mental fatigue, impaired cognitive acuity, and confusion. Comparative analysis was performed against a control group of 1046 individuals without lymphedema. Additionally, a subgroup analysis was performed comparing patients who underwent surgical intervention (n=12) with sthose who did not (n=69). Independent t-tests were employed to evaluate differences between groups. RESULTS: Patients with primary lymphedema had a mean BFS score of 28.10 ± 18.92 and a mean Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score of 27.92 ± 2.28. When compared to the control group, lymphedema patients demonstrated significantly elevated levels of brain fog symptoms, including mental fatigue (10.58 ± 5.44 vs. 8.62 ± 4.63, p=0.0022), impaired cognitive acuity (10.57 ± 8.44 vs. 7.81 ± 6.18, p=0.0050), confusion (6.95 ± 6.56 vs. 5.18 ± 5.71, p=0.0203), and total BFS scores (28.10 ± 18.92 vs. 21.61 ± 17.04, p=0.0035). Notably, patients reporting subjective cognitive complaints (n=21) had significantly higher BFS scores across all domains compared to those without complaints (p<0.0001). Furthermore, patients who underwent surgical intervention reported significantly lower brain fog symptoms compared to those who did not have surgery in two key areas: impaired cognitive acuity (6.25 ± 5.22 vs. 11.32 ± 8.69, p=0.011) and total BFS score (19.75 ± 11.87 vs. 29.55 ± 19.59, p=0.027). CONCLUSION: Patients with primary lymphedema demonstrate substantial cognitive impairments when compared to control group. This thorough analysis underscores the considerable cognitive burden experienced by primary lymphedema patients, particularly among those with cognitive complaints or who have not undergone surgical intervention.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".