An international Task Force on Charcot arthropathy, supported by unrestricted educational grants from Small Bone Innovations, Inc. (SBi) and other orthopedics companies, has reached agreement on new recommendations for the effective treatment of diabetic Charcot foot.
According to the WHO, an estimated 285 million people, 6.4% of the world’s adult population, are thought to have diabetes and that is expected to grow to 438 million by 2030. In the United States alone, more than 80,000 lower limb amputations are annually performed on people with diabetes.
The Task Force, comprising experts in diabetic foot disorders and Charcot arthropathy was convened on Jan. 31, 2011 at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA).
“Our 18-member Task Force representing six nations, discussed our frustration with the misdiagnoses, delayed diagnoses and poor treatment of the Charcot foot. The Task Force is excited about newer developing treatments, but first, we need to combat things like lack of symptom recognition, ignorance of the consequences, and reluctance of doctors to prescribe effective treatments,” Lee C. Rogers, DPM, co-chair of the task force and associate medical director of the Amputation Prevention Center at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles, stated in a press release.
“There is a growing body of clinical evidence that the use of sophisticated external fixation technology … represents a tissue sparing and function restoring alternative to amputation for diabetic patients,” Michael S. Pinzur, MD, Task Force member, professor of adult orthopaedics and rehabilitation, foot and ankle Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, stated.
SBi is an orthopedics company focused exclusively on serving patients and their physicians with technologies and treatments for joint repair and trauma reconstruction around the small bones and joints of the thumb, fingers, hand, wrist, elbow, toes and foot & ankle.
