Michael E. Edmonds - Limb Salvage of the Diabetic Foot: An Interdisciplinary Approach

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The prevalence of diabetes continues to increase worldwide and coincides with a progressive increase in the number of diabetic foot complications. A major amputation in a patient with diabetes takes place every 20 s throughout the world. It is said that 80% of amputations in diabetic patients are preventable. This book is devoted to limb salvage and is about saving the limbs and lives of diabetic foot patients.

After an introductory chapter on assessment, classification and approach to management, the book is divided into four sections, devoted to the four commonest presentations of the diabetic foot, namely, the neuropathic foot, the Charcot foot, the ischaemic foot and the infected foot. Each section has an introduction explaining the clinical approach to each of the presentations and is accompanied by an algorithm illustrating the limb salvage pathway and intervention steps for each of the four presentations. Each section contains clinical photographs illustrating the various presentations as well as the techniques of management.

This book emphasizes the need for an interdisciplinary team approach to the diabetic foot and should help individual members of the team to understand the differing roles of other members. The team is usually referred to as the interdisciplinary team, although in this book, the term multidisciplinary team is also used. There may be subtle differences in the meaning of these terms, but in this multi-author book, they are regarded as interchangeable.

This book is a collaboration between members of the interdisciplinary diabetic foot teams of Kings College Hospital, London, and Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven. This collaboration started in October 2015 with a joint Yale-King's Vascular Symposium at Kings College Hospital, which has been followed by two further symposia, at Yale and in Thailand, the latter in conjunction with the Thai Vascular Association. Contributors to these symposia, from Yale and Kings, form the authorship of this book. We are grateful to them for agreeing to share their expertise in this book.

Finally, we wish to thank our developmental editors, Barbara Lopez-Lucio and Joni Fraser, for their excellent assistance and patience which have been much appreciated.

We hope this book will improve the outlook of the patient with diabetic foot problems and reduce the number of avoidable major amputations.