Diabetic foot care in China: challenges and strategy

The known prevalence of diabetes in China has increased rapidly in the past few decades, from 0·67% in 1980 to 9·7% in 2008. In China, about 92 million people have diabetes and 145 million people have prediabetes. 1 Yang W Lu J Weng J et al. for the China National Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders Study GroupPrevalence of diabetes among men and women in China. N Eng J Med. 2010; 362: 1090-1101 Crossref PubMed Scopus (2684) Google Scholar Among people with diabetes, diabetic foot disease is becoming a serious burden, which not only affects patients' quality of life, but also poses a major challenge to the Chinese health-care system. Unfortunately, national epidemiological data for diabetic foot ulcers and amputation in China are not available, so we refer to survey data from tertiary hospitals in this Comment.