The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Vol 71, Issue 2 257-264, Copyright © 1989 by Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc
Gangrene of the upper extremity in diabetic patients
SW Lagaard, EC McElfresh and RF Premer
Minneapolis Veterans Administration Medical Center, Minnesota 55417.
Twenty-two patients who had diabetes mellitus and had needed an amputation
for gangrene in an upper extremity at an average age of fifty-one years
were identified and followed. The five patients who were still living at
the latest follow-up had been followed for an average of 50.6 months. The
other seventeen patients survived for an average of only 20.6 months after
the amputation. All of the patients were in poor health; eighteen had
needed an amputation in a lower extremity, and sixteen received
hemodialysis. The results of amputation in an upper extremity were
unsatisfactory; the site of the initial amputation healed in only two of
the twenty-two patients. In the remaining twenty patients, a total of
sixty-three additional operations were performed on an upper extremity, and
five of the twenty patients died before the wound had healed.