J Korean Diabetes Assoc.
2004 Aug;28(4):304-314.
Poor Prognosis Factors and Risk Factors of Amputation in Foot ulcers in Diabetes
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Korea.
Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Foot ulcers are a common complication of diabetes mellitus, and their prevalence is increased relative to those without diabetes. Foot ulcers and related complications represent an important cause of morbidity among patients with diabetes mellitus. Most of the poor prognosis factors and amputation risk factors of diabetic foot ulcers have been found to be largely affected by male sex, inadequate blood glucose control, vascular disease, neuropathy, end organ defects, and the depth and size of ulcers, prior ulcer history, infection and ischemia. Currently, the poor prognosis factors and amputation risk factors of diabetic foot ulcers in the Korean diabetic population are unknown. The purpose of this study was to identify and quantify the poor prognosis factors of diabetic foot ulcers and the risk factors of lower extremity amputation.
METHODS
This study comprised of involved 37 male and 14 female diabetics with foot ulcers aged 23 to 83 years. According to the results of treatment, the patients were divided into 4 groups; complete healing (CH), partial healing (PH), unhealing (UH), and amputation (AM) groups. The baseline characteristics of the study subjects (gender, age, duration of diabetes, BMI, drinking, smoking, insulin therapy, blood pressure, whole blood count, renal function test and the size and depth of ulcer, prior ulcer history, osteomyelitis, infection, ischemia, neuropathy and retinopathy) were examined.
RESULTS
The following characteristics were not significantly related to the poor prognosis factors and amputation risk factors of diabetic foot ulcers: age, duration of diabetes, BMI; drinking, smoking, insulin therapy, blood pressure, whole blood count and renal function test. The following characteristics were significantly related to the poor prognosis factors and amputation risk factors of diabetic foot ulcers: male (p=0.021), ischemia (p<0.05), infection (p<0.01), osteomyelitis (p<0.01), prior ulcer history (p<0.05), retinopathy (p<0.05), size of ulcer (p<0.001) and depth of ulcer (p<0.001). The size and depth of an ulcer, prior ulcer history, ischemia and infection were found to be associated with poor prognosis factors of treatment and risk factors of amputation in diabetic foot ulcer patients by a multiple regression test (P<0.05).
CONCLUSION
This study shows that the size and depth of an ulcer, prior ulcer history, ischemia and infection are poor prognosis factors of diabetic foot ulcer and amputation risk factors However, further studies will be required due to the smaill size of our study population.
