Purpose: Diabetic foot ulceration is a chronic complication characterized by impaired wound healing. There is a great demand for a diagnostic tool that is able to monitor and predict wound healing.
Patients and Methods: Oscillations in the microcirculation, known as flowmotion, can be monitored very distinctly and precisely using the Flow Mediated Skin Fluorescence (FMSF) technique. The flowmotion response to hypoxia was measured quantitatively in 42 patients with diabetic foot ulcers.
Results: The flowmotion response to hypoxia parameters FM(R) and HS were used to differentiate the diabetic foot ulcers and correlate them with clinical status. In some cases, FMSF measurements were continued over the period of a year in order to monitor disease progress. The clinical status of the quarter of patients with the highest HS values (group A, HS = 50.2± 18.3) was compared to the quarter with the lowest HS values (group B, HS = 4.3± 1.7). The patients in the group B were identified as having low prognosis for healing and were characterized by higher incidences of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, prevalent CVD, neuropathy and nephropathy.
Conclusion: Impaired flowmotion responses to hypoxia induced by transient ischemia can be used for differentiation of diabetic foot ulcers and identification of cases with low prognosis for healing.