To analyse risk factors for amputation in diabetic foot ulcers.
We have studied 152 diabetic patients (in 14 food ulcers treatment was amputation) who were attendance between January 1996 and June ...1998 in the diabetic foot Unit. Subjects with gangrene were excluded.
Risk factors for amputation were: previous history of amputation (odds ratio 3.7; 1.0113.7), proliferative retinopathy, osteomielitis, and independently clinical signs of peripheral vasculopathy (7.1; 1.88-27.2) and severe infection (14.4; 2.92-71.2).
Diabetic subjects with foot ulcers and previous history of amputation, proliferative retinopathy, osteomielitis, clinical signs of peripheral vasculopathy and/or severe infection were a high risk group for amputation and in this group aggressive therapeutical and preventive approaches should be done in order to prevent amputation.
Diabetes mellitus secondary to alcoholic chronic pancreatitis (DM-ACP) represents 0.5-2% of all cases of diabetes mellitus (DM) and shows predominantly symptoms related to malnutrition instead of ...cardinal clinical signs of diabetes. The aim of this study was to try to further characterize the features of the malnutrition in patients with pancreatic insufficiency. PATIENTS MATERIAL AND METHODS: We selected 40 patients (39 males and 1 female) meeting clinical, functional and morphological diagnostic criteria of DM-ACP which received a nutritional assessment that included estimation on fat and proteic body compartments being classified as caloric, proteic or mixed malnutrition.
29 patients (72.5%) showed some kind of malnutrition. The most frequent type was mixed (proteic-caloric) malnutrition found in 19 of them (47.5%). Caloric malnutrition was present in 6 (15%) and mainly proteic in 4 (10%). Only 11 patients with DM-ACP in our series showed a normal nourishment state.
Large prevalence of mixed malnutrition in DM-ACP patients may be related to malabsorption of macronutrients (especially proteins and fat) due to exocrine insufficiency and misuse of nutrients as a result of the characteristic hypoinsulinemia showed by these patients.
We studied the risk factors of coronary disease in 52 patients (46 male and 6 female) survivors of myocardial infarction (MI). We found that a group of patients under 40 years old had predominant ...lipid alteration (100%) being hypercholesterolemia (CT greater than or equal to 260 mg/dl), the decrease of HDL-C levels (less than or equal to 35 mg/dl) and the increase of the atherogenic index (CT/HDL-C greater than or equal to 6) being the most frequent. At the same time, we observed an important association between several risk factors, such as tobacco consumption (58.5%), sedentary life (56.1%), lipid alterations (hypercholesterolemia: 46.3%, decrease of HDL-C: 41.4%, increase of atherogenic index: 60.9%) in the group of patients under 40 years old. These data show that the alterations of lipid metabolism are risk factors frequently observed in young patients with ischemic cardiac disease.
