Search Results
Preventive foot-care practices, such as annual foot examinations by a health-care provider, can substantially reduce the risk of lower-extremity amputations. We examined the level of preventive foot-care practices (reported rates of having at least one foot examination by a physician) among patients with diabetes mellitus in North Carolina and determined the factors associated with these practices. Of 1,245 adult respondents to the 1997 to 2001 North Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 71.6% reported that they had had their feet examined within the past year, a rate that is much higher than that previously reported by Bell and colleagues in the same population for 1994 to 1995 (61.7%). Foot care was more common among insulin users than nonusers, those having diabetes for 20 years or longer than those having diabetes for less than 10 years, blacks than whites, and those who self-monitored their blood glucose level daily than those who did not. The results of this study indicate that diabetes educational services can be directed at populations at high risk of ignoring the recommended foot-care practices indicated in these analyses, thereby reducing diabetes-related lower-extremity complications. (J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 94(5): 483–491, 2004)
One hundred eighty-seven type 2 diabetic patients without a history of foot ulceration were followed for a mean period of 3.6 years to investigate the incidence of foot ulceration in a diabetes cohort and to analyze risk factors for foot ulceration by multivariate means. During the study, 10 subjects developed 18 forefoot ulcerations. In multivariate logistic regression, significant predictors for foot ulceration were an elevated vibration perception threshold (VPT) (relative risk [RR] = 25.4), an increased plantar pressure (RR = 6.3), and daily alcohol intake (RR = 5.1). This is the first prospective study to demonstrate plantar pressure and daily alcohol intake as predictors of foot ulceration among patients without previous ulceration. Further, VPT could be confirmed as the strongest predictor for foot ulceration, and it was clearly demonstrated that the more pronounced severity of complications occurred among subjects with elevated VPT. (J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 91(7): 343-350, 2001)
Evidence-Based Podiatric Medicine
Importance of Systematic Reviews in Clinical Practice
Due to the exponential increase in the quantity and quality of podiatric medicine–related research during the past decade, podiatric physicians are inundated with an insurmountable volume of research relevant to clinical practice. Systematic reviews can refine this literature by using explicit, rigorous, and reproducible methods to identify, critically appraise, and synthesize the best evidence from all clinical trials to answer clearly defined clinical questions. The Cochrane Collaboration is an international not-for-profit organization created to improve the user-friendliness and accessibility of medical literature mainly through preparing and maintaining systematic reviews of health-care interventions. The Cochrane Library currently contains more than 50 podiatric medicine–relevant systematic reviews summarizing and synthesizing evidence from many hundreds of randomized controlled trials evaluating interventions for foot problems. Although more than 60 countries worldwide have open online access to The Cochrane Library, in the United States, only the state of Wyoming has free access to full-text reviews. In an era demanding an evidence-based approach for every clinical intervention, high-quality systematic reviews streamline podiatric medical literature by reducing the time, cost, and training necessary to establish a solid evidence base for practice. (J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 99(3): 260–266, 2009)
Background: Ultraviolet (UV)-A therapy is a simple, inexpensive, and effective modality for wound healing, with tremendous potential to improve healing and reduce clinical infections in a number of clinical settings. To date, application of UV-A relies on bulky and hard-to-dose lamps that provide inconsistent therapy, thus making it difficult to apply therapy that is appropriate for the patient.
Methods: This study was designed to test the effectiveness of a novel wound therapy device that combines UV-A with traditional negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT) to promote wound healing. Furthermore, we tested the ability of fiberoptic UV-A delivery to inhibit bacterial proliferation. Finally, we assayed the level of DNA damage that results from UV-A as compared to established UV-C therapies. Wound healing studies were performed in a porcine model using an articulated therapy arm that allows for continued therapy administration over an extended time course. Negative-pressure wound therapy was administered alone or with UV-A fiberoptic therapy for 2 weeks. Dressings were changed twice a week, at which time wound area was assessed.
Results: Data demonstrate that UV-A with NPWT treatment of wounds results in greater healing than NPWT alone. Using the same therapy device, we demonstrate that exposure of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to fiberoptic UV-A results in decreased colony area and number of both bacterial strains. Finally, we show that UV-A induces minimal DNA damage in human fibroblasts and no more DNA damage in wound tissue as compare to intact skin.
Conclusions: These data demonstrate that UV-A can decrease bacterial proliferation and promote wound healing when coupled with NPWT.
Ablative fractional laser is suggested to promote wound healing in diabetic and venous leg ulcers. In this article, we report the treatment outcome of a recalcitrant foot ulceration related to lower leg arteriopathy. A 43-year-old man with typical digital substraction angiographic findings of arteriopathy was admitted to our department after 30 sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. There was heterotopic tissue within the ulcer consistent with osseous metaplasia and mature bone tissue. This tissue was removed with full-field erbium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser, and the remaining parts received fractional erbium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser for the induction of wound healing. A decrease in ulcer dimensions was achieved by the second month of laser interventions without recurrence in the first-year control.
Maggot Debridement Therapy
A Primer
Treatment of chronic wounds of the lower extremity requires a systematic, multidisciplinary approach as well as flexibility in order to achieve acceptable, consistent short-term and long-term results. Maggots, once considered an obsolete therapeutic modality, can be a useful addition to the armamentarium of the foot and ankle specialist. This article describes the use of maggot debridement therapy for intractable wounds of the lower extremity. (J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 92(7): 398-401, 2002)
Malignant melanoma is responsible for more than three-fourths of skin cancer deaths in the United States. Melanomas presenting on acral surfaces are frequently misdiagnosed initially, leading to progression of disease and worse prognosis. This case is presented to reinforce the significance of careful physical examination and early biopsy of atypical ulcerations of the foot.
Nerve Decompression After Diabetic Foot Ulceration May Protect Against Recurrence
A 3-Year Controlled, Prospective Analysis
Background
Nerve entrapment, common in diabetes, is considered an associated phenomenon without large consequence in the development of diabetes complications such as ulceration, infection, amputation, and early mortality. This prospective analysis, with controls, of the ulcer recurrence rate after operative nerve decompression (ND) offers an objective perspective on the possibility of frequent occult nerve entrapment in the diabetic foot complication cascade.
Methods
A multicenter cohort of 42 patients with diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy, failed pharmacologic pain control, palpable pulses, and at least one positive Tinel's nerve percussion sign was treated with unilateral multiple lower-leg external neurolyses for the indication of pain. All of the patients had healed at least one previous ipsilateral plantar diabetic foot ulceration (DFU). This group was retrospectively evaluated a minimum of 12 months after operative ND and again 3 years later. The recurrence risk of ipsilateral DFU in that period was prospectively analyzed and compared with new ulcer occurrence in the contralateral intact, nonoperated control legs.
Results
Operated legs developed two ulcer recurrences (4.8%), and nine contralateral control legs developed ulcers (21.4%), requiring three amputations. Ulcer risk is 1.6% per patient per year in ND legs and 7% in nonoperated control legs (P = .048).
Conclusions
Adding operative ND at lower-leg fibro-osseous tunnels to standard postulcer treatment resulted in a significantly diminished rate of subsequent DFU in neuropathic high-risk feet. This is prospective, objective evidence that ND can provide valuable ongoing protection from DFU recurrence, even years after primary ulcer healing.
Objective
Porcine-derived xenograft biological dressings (PXBDs) are occasionally used to prepare chronic wound beds for definitive closure before split-thickness skin grafts (STSGs). We sought to determine whether PXBD influences rate of STSG take in lower-extremity wounds.
Methods
Lower-extremity wounds treated with STSGs were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were included in one of two groups: wound bed preparation with PXBD before STSG or no preparation. Patients were excluded if they received wound bed preparation via another method. Patient demographics, comorbidities, wound history, wound bed preparation, and 30- and 60-day outcomes were collected.
Results
There was no difference in healing outcomes between the PXBD (n = 27) and no preparation (n = 39) groups. At 30- and 60-day follow-up, percentage of STSG take was not significantly different between groups (77.9% versus 79.0%, P 30 = .818; 82.2% versus 80.9%, P 60 = .422). Mean wound sizes at these follow-up periods were not different (4.4 cm2 versus 5.1 cm2, P 30 = .902; 1.2 cm2 versus 1.1 cm2, P 60 = .689). The PXBD group had a higher mean ± SD hemoglobin A1c level (8.3 ± 3.5 versus 6.9 ± 1.6; P = .074) and age (64.9 ± 12.8 years versus 56.3 ± 11.9 years; P = .007) versus the no preparation group.
Conclusions
Application of PXBDs for wound bed preparation had no effect on wound healing compared with no wound bed preparation. The two groups varied only by mean age and hemoglobin A1c level. The PXBD may be beneficial, but these results call for randomized controlled trials to determine the true impact of PXBDs on wound healing. In addition, PXBDs may have utility outside of clinically oriented outcomes, and future work should address patient-reported outcomes and pain scores with this adjunct.
Background:
Elevated dynamic plantar pressures are a consistent finding in diabetic patients with peripheral neuropathy, with implications for plantar foot ulceration. This study aimed to investigate whether a first-ray amputation affects plantar pressures and plantar pressure distribution patterns in individuals living with diabetes and peripheral neuropathy.
Methods:
A nonexperimental matched-subject design was conducted. Twenty patients living with diabetes and peripheral neuropathy were recruited. Group 1 (n = 10) had a first-ray amputation and group 2 (n = 10) had an intact foot with no history of ulceration. Plantar foot pressures and pressure-time integrals were measured under the second to fourth metatarsophalangeal joints, fifth metatarsophalangeal joint, and heel using a pressure platform.
Results:
Peak plantar pressures under the second to fourth metatarsophalangeal joints were significantly higher in participants with a first-ray amputation (P = .008). However, differences under the fifth metatarsophalangeal joint (P = .734) and heel (P = .273) were nonsignificant. Pressure-time integrals were significantly higher under the second to fourth metatarsophalangeal joints in participants with a first-ray amputation (P = .016) and in the heel in the control group (P = .046).
Conclusions:
Plantar pressures and pressure-time integrals seem to be significantly higher in patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy and a first-ray amputation compared with those with diabetic neuropathy and an intact foot. Routine plantar pressure screening, orthotic prescription, and education should be recommended in patients with a first-ray amputation.
