Will a rise in cases of diabetes lead to a rise in the incidence of Charcot’s foot?

Posted 23/04/2012

Statistics published recently revealed that the UK now has over 2.9 million diabetes sufferers and this is projected to rise to over 4 million by 2025. Meanwhile a study of 3,000 diabetes patients in Scandinavia revealed that around 0.3% of diabetics suffered from Charcot’s foot. It is therefore possible that by 2025 there could be some 12,000 patients with symptoms of Charcot’s foot at any one time in the UK.Charcot’s foot is a sudden softening of the bones in the foot which can occur in people who have significant nerve damage. The bones are weakened enough to fracture and with continued walking, the foot eventually changes shape. As the disorder progresses the arch collapses and the foot takes on a convex shape, giving it a rocker-bottom appearance and making it very difficult to walk.Trefine Maynard, a medical injury specialist at Ashtons Legal, comments: “The incidence of Charcot’s foot is fortunately currently low. With the predicted growth in diabetes, the fear is that Charcot’s will become more common. The great fear is that the diagnosis will not be made as early as it should be. It is imperative to identify a Charcot’s foot at the earliest possible opportunity so that immediate measures can be put in place to treat and preserve the foot. Once Charcot’s is present, the huge danger is that the foot can quickly become infected and/or damaged and that without a high degree of alertness and early treatment as soon as a problem exists, there is real and substantial danger of subsequent amputation. We have acted for clients where there was a missed early diagnosis of Charcot’s which did lead to avoidable amputation. We have also undertaken investigation into failures to treat properly those with known Charcot’s where such failures have led to weeks of pain and ultimately to amputation.This is a very unpleasant condition and we must hope that with the recognised likely increase in diabetes sufferers, there is a similar increase in awareness from medical professionals of the danger of those patients developing Charcot’s foot, and an increase in the general awareness of this condition, together with an improvement in early diagnosis and subsequent treatment. ”