Objective:
The aim of the study was to determine the percentage of individuals with neuropathic diabetic foot ulcers receiving good wound care who heal within a defined period of time.
Research design and methods:
We conducted a systematic review of the control groups of clinical trials that evaluated a treatment for diabetic neuropathic foot ulcers. the meta-analytic techniques used include an estimation of the weighted mean percentage healed by end point, an evaluation of the homogeneity of trials, and an estimate of the 95% ci of the grouped data. grouped-data univariate and multivariate logistic regression was conducted to assess the impact of mean age, ulcer size, and duration on the percentage of ulcers healed at end point.
Results:
We found a total of 10 control groups meeting our criteria. six control groups used 20 weeks as the end point for healing or nonhealing. for the six control arms with a 20-week end point, we found a weighted mean healing rate of 30.9% (95% ci 26.6-35.1). a similar analysis for the four 12-week arms found a mean healing rate of 24.2% (19.5-28.8). we failed to detect any statistically significant heterogeneity for either the 20-week or the 12-week trials.
Conclusions:
After 20 weeks of good wound care, approximately 31% of diabetic neuropathic ulcers heal. similarly, after 12 weeks of good care, approximately 24% of neuropathic ulcers attain complete healing. further patient-level analyses are necessary to definitively determine the associations of age, wound size, and wound duration with likelihood of healing.