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• Diabetic Foot Ulcers
• Efficacy and Safety
• Patient Identification

Diabetic Foot Ulcers

Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are chronic wounds that can develop on the foot or lower extremities of people with diabetes. Poor healing of DFUs may be due to several factors, including abnormal cellular/inflammatory pathways, peripheral neuropathy and vascular disease/tissue hypoxia.¹ Among people with diabetes, approximately 15 to 25% experience a DFU in their lifetime ^2,3 and approximately 2% develop a DFU each year.⁴

If not properly treated, DFUs can result in serious complications, including amputation. In fact, of those patients who do develop a DFU, 14% to 24% will require an amputation.¹ In the United States, approximately 60% of all nontraumatic lower extremity amputations occur among persons with diabetes; of these amputations, approximately 85% are preceded by a foot ulcer.^5,6 Patients hospitalized with diabetes are 28 times more likely to have an amputation than patients without diabetes.⁷

"Any wound that remains unhealed after 4 weeks is cause for concern, as it is associated with worse outcomes, including amputation.¹"

References

1. American Diabetes Association. Consensus development conference on diabetic foot wound care, 7-8 April 1999, Boston Massachusetts. Diabetes Care. 1999;22:1354-1360.
2. Sanders LJ. Diabetes mellitus: prevention of amputation. J Am Podiatric Assoc. 1994;84:322-328.
3. Singh N, Armstrong DG, Lipsky BA. Preventing foot ulcers in patients with diabetes. JAMA. 2005;293:217-28.
4. Ramsey et al. Incidence, outcomes and cost of foot ulcers in patients with diabetes. Diabetes Care. 1999;22:382-7.
5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National diabetes fact sheet: general information and national estimates on diabetes in the United States, 2007. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008. http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/statistics/.
6. Pecoraro RE, Reiber GE, Burgess EM. Pathways to diabetic limb amputation: basis for prevention. Diabetes Care 1990;13:513-21.
7. AHRQ Economic and Health Costs of Diabetes, Jan 2005; http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/highlight1/high1.htm.