Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Diabetic foot is one of the important and destructive complications of diabetes. During the life time of a diabetic patient, the risk of developing foot ulcers is around 5–15%, and about 20–25% of the causes of hospitalization in diabetic patients are due to foot ulcers. 40–80% of foot ulcers can be infected and resulted in osteomyelitis. Hospitalization due to osteomyelitis is 12 times more in diabetic patients than in non-diabetic population.

Objective: It is aimed to evaluate retrospectively, the patients admitted due to diabetic foot to the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases at Ankara University, Faculty of Medicine in the last 1 year.

Method: Information from the data processing system and file records about patient age, gender; smoking habbits, diabetes education, diet compliance; duration of diabetes; presence of other micro/macrovascular diabetic complications, diabetic foot development and progression, and HbA1c levels were obtained. Fifty four diabetic foot patients were evaluate eighteen of whom were outpatient, and thirty six of whom were inpatient.

Results: The majority of patients were suffering from type 2 diabetes melltus (96%). All chronic micro/macrovascular complications especially peripheral arterial disease were detected at high rates in diabetic foot patients. Trauma and burns (respectively, 34% and 10.6% of patients) were detected as major triggering factors. The mean duration of diabetic foot development was determined as 150 days at inpatients and 60 days at outpatients. Most of outpatients (55.6%) were presented with Wagner 1 diabetic foot ulcers and 50% of the inpatients were presented with Wagner 3-4-5 diabetic foot ulcers.

Conclusions: Diabetic foot evaluation, treatment and follow-up requires a multidisciplinary approach. In terms of diabetic foot development, it is very important to identify high-risk patients and determine the appropriate treatment plan.

References

[1] S. Melmed, K.S. Polonsky, Williams Textbook of Endocrinology, 13th edition.

[2] V.T. Gedik, Ö.Demir, ‘Klinik Endokrinoloji’ page 244–246.

[3] Boulton AJM, Cavanagh PR. The Foot in Diabetes. 4th ed. 2006