The influence of preexisting lower extremity edema and venous stasis disease on body contouring outcomes.

Background: While a cause and effect relationship is traditionally thought to exist between thigh surgery and postoperative lymphedema, the link between obesity-related lymphatic and/or venous disease and post-body contouring lower extremity edema has not been investigated. We hypothesize that patients who experience prolonged lower extremity edema following thigh surgery are predisposed to developing this complication due to unrecognized preoperative lymphovascular disease.

Methods: Fifty-five patients who had undergone body contouring surgery were identified from our prospective registry.

Multilevel category structure in the ART-2 network.

Multilevel categorization is investigated within the context of analog activity patterns on the output layer of an ART 2 network. The ART 2 network parameters are analyzed in terms of stable category formation and in terms of the number of nodes in the output layer that can become most active. The resulting activity patterns on the output layer demonstrate a multilevel category structure based on the relative differences between patterns that exist for many different values of the vigilance parameter.