Semiautomated segmentation of lower extremity MRI reveals distinctive subcutaneous adipose tissue in lipedema: a pilot study.

Purpose: Lipedema is a painful subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) disease involving disproportionate SAT accumulation in the lower extremities that is frequently misdiagnosed as obesity. We developed a semiautomatic segmentation pipeline to quantify the unique lower-extremity SAT quantity in lipedema from multislice chemical-shift-encoded (CSE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Approach: Patients with lipedema () and controls () matched for age and body mass index (BMI) underwent CSE-MRI acquired from the thighs to ankles.