Amputation: Is diabetes an underdiagnosed cause?

Patients attending the Roehampton limb fitting centre were assessed to determine the cause of amputation.

Government statistics for 1986 state that diabetes was the cause of amputation in 20% of people who were attended to by the Department of Health and Social Services Artificial Limb Service. Results of this London study, however, support the higher figures of 45‐70% amputations resulting from diabetes, as indicated by American studies.

This discrepancy may be attributed to the DHSS form AP11 which is used to collect statistical data regarding the aetiology of amputations but allows only one entry under aetiology of the amputation.