Association of Preulcerative Foot Care and Outcomes of Diabetic Foot Ulceration

The purpose of this study was to determine the association of preulcerative foot care and outcomes of diabetic foot ulcerations (DFUs).

This retrospective cohort study using the Mariner all-payers claims data set included participants with a new DFU from 2010 to 2019. Patients were stratified into two cohorts (foot care and control) based on whether they had received any outpatient foot care within 12 months before DFU. Adjusted comparison was performed by propensity matching for age, sex, and the Charlson Comorbidity Index (1:2 ratio). Kaplan-Meier estimates and logistic regression examined the association between foot care and outcomes of DFUs.

Of the 307,131 patients in the study cohort, 4.7% (n = 14,477) received outpatient preulcerative foot care within the 12-month period before DFU. The rate of major amputation was 1.8% (foot care, 1.2%), and 9.0% of patients had hospitalizations for foot infection within 12 months after DFU (foot care, 7.8%). In the study cohort, patients who received pre-DFU foot care had greater major amputation-free survival (P < .001) on Kaplan-Meier estimate. In both the study and matched cohorts, multivariable analysis demonstrated that foot care was associated with lower odds of major amputation for both study (odds ratio [OR], 0.56; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.48-0.66) and matched (OR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.51-0.72) cohorts, and lower odds of hospitalizations for a foot infection in both study (OR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.86-0.96) and matched (OR, 0.88, 95% CI, 0.82-0.94) cohorts.

Among patients with a new DFU, those who received outpatient preulcerative foot care within 12 months of diagnosis had lower risks of major amputation and hospitalizations for foot infection.