Survival of diabetes patients with major amputation is comparable to malignant disease.

Introduction: Almost all studies on diabetic foot syndrome focused on prevention of amputation and did not investigate long-term prognosis and survival of patients as a primary outcome parameter.

Methods: We did a retrospective cohort study including 314 patients who had diabetic foot syndrome and underwent amputation between December 1995 and January 2001.

Results: A total of 48% of patients received minor amputation (group I), 15% only major amputation (group II) and 36% initially underwent a minor amputation that was followed by a major amputation (group III). Statistically significant differences were observed in comparison of the median survival of group I to group II (51 vs. 40 months; p = 0.016) and of group II to group III (40 vs. 55 months; p = 0.003).

Discussion: The prognosis of patients with major amputation due to diabetic foot syndrome is comparable to patients with malignant diseases. Vascular interventions did not improve the individual prognosis of patients.