Diabetic foot disease: impact of ulcer location on ulcer healing

Background Healing of heel ulcers in patients with diabetes is considered to be poor, but there is relatively little information on the influence of ulcer location on ulcer healing. Methods The influence of ulcer location on time to healing of diabetic foot ulcers was analysed by multivariate Cox regression analysis for 1000 patients included in the Eurodiale study, a prospective cohort study of patients with diabetic foot disease. Results Median time to healing was 147days for toe ulcers [(95% confidence interval (CI) 135-159days)], 188days for midfoot ulcers (95% CI 158-218days) and 237days for heel ulcers (95% CI 205-269days) (