Diabetic foot guidelines released

To tackle the growing incidences of diabetic foot and reduce the pain the condition causes patients, the Chinese Diabetic Society recently compiled a guide book for doctors to improve diabetic foot diagnosis and treatment.

China’s aging society has meant the country now has the world’s largest diabetic population, with 98 million sufferers. Diabetic foot, or foot complications resulting from nerve damage caused by diabetes, is also a widespread problem.

Diabetic foot syndrome usually has symptoms such as ulcers and infection, and not only impacts patients’ living quality, but also causes amputation and death.

In China, diabetic foot causes great social burden, mostly because patients are not fully aware of the threat, and also because professionals with expertise in the field are in great shortage, some diabetic experts said on the news conference.

Diabetic foot accounts for 19 percent of amputations in China, which is the number one disease-related reason for amputations in the country. About 20 percent of diabetics experience foot ulcers for at least once, and foot ulcers cause 85 percent of amputations among diabetics, according to Ran Xingwu, director with diabetic foot and foot blood vessel disease division under the Chinese Diabetes Society.

Xu Zhangrong, director of the diabetes treatment center of the 306th Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army, observed from his clinic experiences that low awareness of diabetic foot in China means many patients not to seek professional opinions to control diabetic foot symptoms until it is too late. In developed countries, training for foot disease specialists even includes doctorate programs, but in China, only top hospitals have foot disease specialists.

There are also no diabetic foot diagnosis and treatment guidelines issued by national health authorities, according to Xu. The Chinese Diabetic Society organized dozens of top medical experts in related fields, such as diabetes specialist, vascular surgeons and foot disease specialists, to compile the new guidelines to help medical professionals better understand diabetic foot, as well as try to provide a standardized and detailed diagnosis and treatment procedure reference for their use, says Ran Xingwu from the organization.

The society also plans to organize training sessions in 50 cities across the country, so that doctors from local hospitals can learn from top experts.