A survey of diabetic foot patients with hospitalized amputations performed in a medical center over 5 years in China: limitations and lessons learnt.

To perform a retrospective survey of the clinical features and clinical courses of diabetic foot patients with amputations hospitalized in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University from 2007 to 2011. According to the database from the medical records department in our hospital 36 cases of diabetic patients were selected out of 805 cases of amputees. The clinical information was recorded in detail. With the contact information provided in the medical record, telephone interviews were conducted for each patient and their family to complete the record for the current disease progression and the patient's treatment process. Among all of the patients with hospitalized amputations, 36/805(4.47%) were diabetic foot patients with amputations, accounting for 36/273(13.19%) of non-traumatic amputations. The average age of the diabetic patients with first-time amputations was 62 years, the average BMI was greater than 24.5 kg/m(2), and the waist-to-hip ratio was greater than 0.92. Among the 22 patients who completed the follow-up interviews, 17 had only small amputations. Diabetic amputation has become a common clinical problem. The patients were mainly elderly, overweight or obese. Amputations at the toe level still accounted for a large proportion of the patients. Overall, the follow-up interviews indicated that the patients lacked good understanding of and concern for their own disease, with unclear control of blood sugar and no standardized control method. Helping the patients to understand the disease and paying attention to health education may play a role in the prevention and treatment of diabetes and diabetic foot disease.