Severe cases of diabetes mellitus will often lead doctors to amputate some of the lower limbs, but new data from federal health officials show that the number of foot and leg amputations in the U.S. is falling. According to UPI, the rate of amputation for American diabetics age 40 and older dropped 65 percent from 1996 to 2008.
The data comes from a study performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Atlanta-based group found that while limb amputations were 11.2 per 1,000 diabetics in 1996, those numbers stood at 3.9 per 1,000 in 2008.
But the U.S. still has some catching up to do when it comes to other populations. The rate of amputations was still high in diabetics age 75 and older, with 6.2 surgeries per 1,000 people required in 2008. Men also had higher rates than women—6 per 1,000 versus 1.9 per 1,000—and blacks underwent surgery at a rate of 4.9 per 1,000 compared to the 2.9 per 1,000 surgery rate experienced by whites.
Nilka Rios Burrows, an epidemiologist at the CDC, said in a statement that more work needed to be done to level the playing field when it came to diabetes-related surgery.
“The significant drop in rates of non-traumatic lower-limb amputations among U.S. adults with diagnosed diabetes is certainly encouraging, but more work is needed to reduce the disparities among certain populations,” Burrows said. “We must continue to increase awareness of the devastating health complications of diabetes.”
Diabetics who undergo amputation do so because of circulatory problems in the lower limbs, UPI noted. These types of surgeries are referred to as non-traumatic lower-limb amputations because they are necessitated by illness, not injury.
Diabetes is still the number one cause of lower-limb amputations in the United States, Burrows said.
