Diabetic Foot Disease—Incidence and Risk Factors: A Clinical Study

ABSTRACTDiabetic foot disease is one of the most common, yet dreaded long-term complication of diabetes mellitus, especially in developing countries. It is the single-most common cause of nontraumatic lower limb amputations. Various studies worldwide have shown an incidence of diabetic foot to be 15 to 25%. Elderly males who are smokers and have habit of alcohol intake and have long duration of type 2 diabetes are at major risk for this problem. The other significant risk factors are: Poor glycemic control, neuropathy, angiopathy, nephropathy, and retinopathy. Management of diabetic foot disease involves a multidisciplinary approach. The present study was conducted with the aim to know about the prevalence of the incidence of diabetic foot disease in diabetic patients and to enumerate the different risk factors associated with it for the occurrence of diabetic foot disease in such patients at the time of presentation.Over a period of 1 year, a prospective study involving 1,016 diabetic patients as per World Health Organization (WHO) criteria were screened for diabetic foot disease. All cases were graded as per University of Texas classification. Incidence of diabetic foot disease was calculated and the risk factors were identified through proper history taking, clinical evaluation, and specialized tests as and when required.Some of the common risk factors identified in our study were: Elderly males from poor families having long-term type 2 diabetes and who were smokers and alcoholics. Many of these patients had other systemic complications of diabetes in the form of neuropathy, retinopathy, angiopathy, and nephropathy as well. A very important, yet easily modifiable risk factor was poor glycemic control. Our conclusion from the study is being that the diabetic foot disease is much common than anticipated in diabetes mellitus patients; it is on the rise and the resultant morbidity is very crippling to the affected individuals. Therefore it is very important to identify the risk factors and educate patients about them, especially the modifiable risk factors, so that its incidence and the morbidity can be brought down significantly.How to cite this articleSharma R, Kapila R, Sharma AK, Mann J. Diabetic Foot Disease—Incidence and Risk Factors: A Clinical Study. J Foot Ankle Surg (Asia-Pacific) 2016;3(1):41-46.