[Peripheral artery disease and diabetes: complex multidisciplinary care for an increasing number of patients]

The forthcoming increase in the number of people with diabetes mellitus (DM) is likely to lead to an absolute and relative increase in the number of people with a combination of DM and peripheral artery disease (PAD). Due to different pathophysiological processes and presentation, diagnosis and treatment in these patients are more complicated compared to non-DM related PAD. Understanding the differences, pitfalls and concerns in patients with combined DM-PAD would result in better care for these patients, who are at high risk of cardiovascular comorbidities, mortality and amputation. Introduced by two case reports, we provide an overview of current guidelines, recent literature and innovations to address these critical issues.