Diabetic black toe is a marker for fatal myocardial infarction

✍ Scribed by Shawis, TN ;Logan, A ;Lomax, GA ;Eccles, K ;Jones, GR

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 270 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1357-8170
• DOI: 10.1002/pdi.1960150206

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

A relationship between foot digit gangrene and mortality was investigated in a retrospective study. Thirty three patients with diabetes (18 female, 15 male, age range 41–82yrs) presented with isolated foot digital gangrene at the diabetic foot clinic between 1988 and 1994. Twenty‐three were smoking at presentation. Angiography was performed in 29 patients; two were accepted for arterial reconstruction and one for angioplasty. During the study period 22 patients died (mean survival from presentation 15.4 months) −20 from acute myocardial infarction. one from congestive cardiac failure and one from a stroke (age range at death 41–79).

This study emphasises the dramatic association between smoking and arterial disease, and shows that digital gangrene developing in diabetic patients is a powerful indicator of impending acute myocardial infarction. Patients with digital gangrene should be fully assessed for coronary disease, all should be treated with aspirin, and smoking should be discouraged.