There are alarming statistics when it comes to diabetes and the association with poor wound healing.
In the United States, every 1.2 seconds someone develops a diabetic foot ulcer. Every 20 seconds someone with diabetes undergoes an amputation.* Those are frightening statistics.
Patient with Diabetes often suffer with impairment of self-repairing abilities and difficulty with wound healing. Hyperglycemia, or high blood glucose, is associated with stiffer blood vessels causing poor circulation and microvascular dysfunction.
Patients with Diabetes are at greater risk for delayed healing and complication if they develop a wound or injury.
In addition to poor blood flow, diabetes may cause neuropathy, or nerve damage, resulting in numbness or weakness. This can make it very difficult for patients with diabetes to feel a wound on a leg or the foot. Serious injuries have occurred to patients who did not realize they had stepped on a nail or had an object lodged in their foot because they did not feel any pain or sensation.
Here are more statistics on diabetic foot ulcers
- DFU management costs = $9 – 13 billion in the United States
- 100 million adults in United States with diabetes or pre-diabetes
- Type 2 Diabetes costs by 2026 is estimated to be $28.6 billion
- 1 million diabetic foot ulcers in the United States
- Risk of development is 15 – 25%
- 24% of those with DFU will have amputation
*Sources
*Armstrong, D. et. al (2017) https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMra1615439
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-report.html
Sen, C.K. (2019) Human wounds and its burden: an updated compendium of estimates. Advances in Wound Care, 8(2), 39 - 48
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7243111/
