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Diabetic neuropathic foot ulcer: successful treatment by low-intensity laser therapy
A Schindl1, M Schindl, H Pernerstorfer-Schön
1Division of Special and Environmental Dermatology, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, University of Vienna Medical School, Vienna, Austria. Andreas.Schindl@akh-wien.ac.at
Objective:
To evaluate the efficacy of low-intensity laser irradiation for the induction of wound healing of a diabetic neuropathic foot ulcer.
Case:
We report a case of a man with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, sensory neuropathy, macroangiopathy and microangiopathy who had been suffering from an ulcer of his first left toe accompanied by osteomyelitis for 6 weeks.
Results:
After a total of 16 sessions of low-intensity laser therapy using a 670-nm diode laser administered within a 4-week period the ulcer healed completely. During a follow-up period of 9 months, there was no recurrence of the ulcer even though the patient's metabolic condition remained unstable.
Conclusions:
Although laser therapy was not applied as a monotherapy, the present observation suggests that it might constitute a useful side-effect-free alternative treatment modality for the induction of wound healing of neuropathic ulcers in diabetic patients. Therefore large properly controlled randomized studies seem justified.