Endocrine Abstracts

Purpose: Diabetic Foot Ulceration (DFU) is common problem throughout the world and resulting in major economic consequences for the patients and country. We aim to describe estimated cost of illness between patients with DFU in southern Turkey.

Methods: A total of 148 (F = 55, M = 93) patients with DFU were included in this retrospective study. We also included more than one admission of the patients with DFU. Patients characteristics, duration time of hospitalizations, biochemical parameters, having diabetic retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy, coronary artery diasease and peripheral artery disease were recorded from our database. The cost of each patient was recorded from financial affairs and billing department unit of our hospital.

Results: The average unit cost of each patient was £ 733.47 ± 665.32. The major dispenses in the total cost were medication (281.2 ± 412.5) and hospitalisation fee (74.9 ± 54.3). 115 (77.7%) of the patients had periferic arterial diseases. While we could not determined significant correlation between the patients demographical features (age, gender, P > 0.05), biochemical parameters (plasma glucose, HbA1c%) and diabetes mellitus year (P); lenght of the hospitalization, having periferic artery diseases and performed amputation (minor or major) were significant correlated with total expenses.

Conclusion: The study revealed that the cost of DFU could show a variability in relation with development of countries. We highlighted as similar studies in other countries, major increasing factor of total expenses were lenght of hospitalization, medication and presence of surgery.