Foreword
Traian Pătraşcuforeword, no. 5, 2018
Article DOI: 10.21614/chirurgia.113.5.591
Diabetes mellitus still remains one of the most frequent diseases, affecting approximately 10% of the population. Through the complications it can produce, diabetes mellitus is a very serious public health problem. The American Diabetes Association has shown that about half of the cases of type II diabetes mellitus are undiagnosed. In fact, usually it takes 5 to 7 years from the illness actual debut to give a diagnosis, during which diabetes is initially dormant and presenting very few symptoms.
This is why sometimes the clinical debut of the diabetic illness occurs through coma. In other cases, diabetes can occur through one of the numerous complications of the diabetic illness, many of them treated through surgery. Diabetes is a general sickness of the body and it produces complications in all organs because of the vascular and nervous lesions it causes. The cardiovascular, renal and ocular pathology caused by diabetes is often accompanied by vascular nervous complications located at the level of the pelvic members, creating a special entity called "diabetic foot". Circulatory alteration (arteriopathy) and nerve alteration (neuropathy) are always present together, with one of them predominating.
Diabetic gangrenous lesions,which take aggressive progressive forms, frequently appear and can evolve up to the point of requiring debilitating amputations. The clinical forms under which surgical complications of the diabetic foot can evolve are very numerous and knowing them can mean the difference between a conservative intervention and a major, debilitating one, that could possibly be avoided.
The vicinity of our clinic to The N. Paulescu National Diabetes and Nutrition Institute leads to us taking care each year of a great number of patients with surgical complications from diabetes.
Approximately 40% of our hospitalized patients present with surgical complications of diabetes mellitus. Our declared goal has been to find ways of reducing the number of debilitating amputations which turn the patient into a cripple.
This is why sometimes the clinical debut of the diabetic illness occurs through coma. In other cases, diabetes can occur through one of the numerous complications of the diabetic illness, many of them treated through surgery. Diabetes is a general sickness of the body and it produces complications in all organs because of the vascular and nervous lesions it causes. The cardiovascular, renal and ocular pathology caused by diabetes is often accompanied by vascular nervous complications located at the level of the pelvic members, creating a special entity called "diabetic foot". Circulatory alteration (arteriopathy) and nerve alteration (neuropathy) are always present together, with one of them predominating.
Diabetic gangrenous lesions,which take aggressive progressive forms, frequently appear and can evolve up to the point of requiring debilitating amputations. The clinical forms under which surgical complications of the diabetic foot can evolve are very numerous and knowing them can mean the difference between a conservative intervention and a major, debilitating one, that could possibly be avoided.
The vicinity of our clinic to The N. Paulescu National Diabetes and Nutrition Institute leads to us taking care each year of a great number of patients with surgical complications from diabetes.
Approximately 40% of our hospitalized patients present with surgical complications of diabetes mellitus. Our declared goal has been to find ways of reducing the number of debilitating amputations which turn the patient into a cripple.
