Diabetic Foot Syndrome in the Twenty-First Century

Diabetes mellitus is an international epidemic. In the United States, the prevalence of diabetes has increased from estimates in 1990 when 6.5% of the population was affected and 6.2 million people had diabetes compared with the estimates in 2017 with 24.7 million people with diabetes or accounting 9.6% of the adult population. The diabetic foot syndrome manifests as a combination of diabetes-related diseases including diabetic sensory neuropathy, limited joint mobility, immunopathy, peripheral arterial disease, foot ulceration, and Charcot arthropathy. The culmination of these provides an ideal environment for unrecognized tissue injury that leads to ulceration, infection, infection, and amputation.