Swabbing and deep tissue cultures appear to be equally reliable for the initial monitoring of antimicrobial treatment in severe diabetic foot infection. However, our experience seems to suggest that deep tissue might be more sensitive than swabbing for monitoring those isolates that have been selected for antibiotic resistance, i.e. those from ulcers that are still active after 30 days of treatment.

limb-threatening foot infection were consecutively enrolled in a prospective, randomized, controlled clinical study aimed at assessing the safety and efficacy of recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) (lenograstim) as an adjunctive therapy for the standard treatment of diabetic foot infection. Forty patients, all of whom displayed evidence of osteomyelitis and long-standing ulcer infection, were randomized 1:1 to receive either conventional treatment (i.e., antimicrobial therapy plus local treatment) or conventional therapy plus 263 g of G-CSF subcutaneously daily for 21 days. The empiric antibiotic treatment (a combination of ciprofloxacin plus clindamycin) was further adjusted, when necessary, according to the results of cultures and sensitivity testing. Microbiologic assessment of foot ulcers was performed by both deep-tissue biopsy and swab cultures, performed at enrollment and on days 7 and 21 thereafter. Patients were monitored for 6 months; the major endpoints (i.e., cure, improvement, failure, and amputation) were blindly assessed at weeks 3 and 9. At enrollment, both patient groups were comparable in terms of both demographic and clinical data. None of the G-CSF-treated patients experienced either local or systemic adverse effects. At the 3-and 9-week assessments, no significant differences between the two groups could be observed concerning the number of patients either cured or improved, the number of patients displaying therapeutic failure, or the species and number of microorganisms previously yielded from cultures at day 7 and day 21. Conversely, among this small series of patients the cumulative number of amputations observed after 9 weeks of treatment appeared to be lower in the G-CSF arm; in fact, only three patients (15%) in this group had required amputation, whereas nine patients (45%) in the other group had required amputation (P ‫؍‬ 0.038). In conclusion, the administration of G-CSF for 3 weeks as an adjunctive therapy for limb-threatening diabetic foot infection was associated with a lower rate of amputation within 9 weeks after the commencement of standard treatment. Further clinical studies aimed at precisely defining the role of this approach to this serious complication of diabetes mellitus appear to be justified.

Despite normal contractile reserve, a defective blunted recruitment of myocardial contractility plays an important role in determining exercise LV dysfunction in the early phase of diabetic cardiomyopathy. This abnormal response to exercise is strongly related to an impairment of cardiac sympathetic innervation.

Islet-cell (ICA) and organ-specific autoantibodies (OSA) were determined by the indirect immunofluorescence technique in 920 diabetics, 1,159 nondiabetic patients, and 100 young and 100 adult healthy controls with normal glucose tolerance. In control subjects ICA were not detected, and only 20 miscellaneous patients with normal glucose tolerance showed ICA (1.7 per cent). ICA were present in 45.4 per cent of patients with juvenile insulin-dependent diabetes (IDD) during the first six months of disease and in 29.1 per cent of patients between 6 and 12 months of disease onset; ICA presence decreased to 19.2 per cent and 20.6 per cent after one and five years of duration of diabetes.In patients with maturity-onset IDD, ICA incidence was 19.4 per cent in the first year, 20 per cent between one and five years, and 12.2 per cent after five years of disease. In this group, 64 per cent of ICA-positive patients showed clinical and/or serologic evidence of thyroid, gastric, or adrenal autoimmune disorders.In sera from young patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes (J-NIDD), ICA were not detected. In adult patients with the same type of diabetes (M-NIDD) ICA incidence was 9.8, 7, and 8.9 per cent and was not related to the duration of diabetes. Patients with chemical diabetes were divided into two groups (younger and older than 35 years), and ICA incidence was 18.9 and 12.9 per cent, respectively. In two nondiabetic patients, glucagon cell autoantibodies were detected. ICA titers were variable in juvenile IDD of recent onset. Persistent ICA titers, frequently associated with OSA, were observed in the other types of diabetes, with the exception of J-NIDD. ICA may be considered markers of severe beta-cell alteration, with consequent reduction of insulin secretion, even though insulin dependency is sometimes delayed in a few patients. DIABETES 26:909-15, October, 1977.