Publication:

Relationship between the duration of diabetes and severity of neuropathy in patients of peripheral neuropathic diabetic foot ulcers

Background Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) has devastating impact on the social, personal as well as economic life of a diabetic patient. In US, prevalence of peripheral neuropathy in adult diabetics is approximately 28%. The aim of this study is to establish relationship between the duration of diabetes and severity of neuropathy in patients with peripheral neuropathic DFU.

Methods This is a prospective observational study, including 30 patients, who underwent history, examination and Toronto clinical scoring system (TCSS) was used for diagnosing severity of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (mild, moderate, severe) from a period of October 2015 to June 2017.

Results In this study, we observed that the mean age of the diabetic foot patients was 53.50±12.03 years ranging from 30 to 75 years. Male-to-female ratio was 1.5:1. The mean duration of diabetes was 6.38±4.57 years. The patients with mild neuropathy had a mean duration of diabetes of 4.77±2.61 years, while, those with moderate and severe neuropathy had mean duration of 7.17±1.48years and 8.48±4.59 years, respectively.

Conclusions The study concluded that there is a significant association between duration of diabetes and severity of neuropathy, i.e., patients with longer duration of diabetes had severe peripheral neuropathy.