I am pleased to announce that we have just posted a few pages from the Ulceration and Infection section of the newly revised Diabetic Foot Infection chapter of the 3rd Edition of the Handbook. Just go to “Preview the Book” in the header above and you will find the pdf link.
I chose this section to include in the book and as a preview since I feel it is important information for anyone treating lower extremity infections to understand. It contains the entire “Executive Summary” of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) diabetic foot infection guidelines published in 2004. The Guidelines in their entirety can be found at www.idsociety.org by clicking on the link for “Clinical Practice Guidelines”. These are evidenced based recommendations based on the best available data at the time they were written. The DFI guidelines have been revised and a draft is being presented at the IDSA meeting in Philadelphia later this month with the hopes of publishing sometime in 2010. This summary includes important points such as #4 – almost all DFIs are caused by gram positive cocci. #5 – Wound infections should be based on clinical, not laboratory grounds. #9 – evidence does not support the antibiotic treatment of clinically uninfected ulcerations, along with 16 other recommendations.
Also in this preview section is the IDSA DFI severity classification system. Unlike other classifications that look at diabetic foot ULCERATIONS, this one is specific for severity of INFECTION. It is easy to understand with only 4 categories and has been independently validated by Larry Lavery and colleagues in a paper published in Clinical Infectious Diseases in 2007 showing that, as the severity increases so do the number of hospitalizations and amputations. This system has now been accepted by most investigators in DFI and is widely used in clinical trials of the condition. It can also be used by everyday clinicians in their clinical practice. For example, under your patient assessment, consider using this system. i.e. “Patient presents today with an IDSA Moderate DFI of the 2nd metatarsal region”.
I hope that you find this new Preview interesting and useful.
