[Diabetic foot attack. Pathophysiological description, clinical presentation, treatment and outcomes]

Diabetic foot attack has an acute and severe presentation that threatens the affected limb and the patient's life. It is a term that arises from the need to identify those patients that require urgent intervention; it conveys a sense of urgency and severity, reminding the term of "time is tissue". The classic presentation is that of a severe infected foot with rapidly progressive necrosis that requires urgent surgery to debride all necrotic tissue and purulent collections, providing an adequate antibiotic treatment. Ischemic diabetic foot attack that demands urgent revascularization and the acute Charcot neuroarthropathy for which primacy is given to diagnostic confirmation and off-loading are also consid ered atypical presentations of diabetic foot attack. The aim of identifying these diabetic foot presentations is to promote rapid intervention to provide adequate and effective treatment, avoiding the most feared complication which is the limb amputation. In the present review, a description of the pathophysiology, clinical presentation, treatment and evolution of the three types of diabetic foot attack is made.