Open bypass and endovascular procedures among diabetic foot ulcer cases in the United States from 2001 to 2010

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate trends in outcomes of inpatient mortality, surgical complications, charges, and length of stay stratified according to open vs endovascular revascularization and amputation status in patients admitted to the hospital with diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs). Methods: Inpatient discharge records from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project were used in this retrospective cohort study spanning 2001 to 2010. Multivariate regression analyses were used to simultaneously control for patient demographic and socioeconomic attributes, hospital characteristics, and comorbid case-mix disease severity. Results: During the study period, 2.5 million inpatient DFU cases were observed, of which 412,051 (16.5%) involved amputation (34.8% major, 61.2% minor). Overall, 211,534 (8.5%) of DFU cases underwent revascularization (43.5% open, 51.1% endovascular treatment [EVT], 5.4% both). From 2001 vs 2010, the volume of open procedures decreased 34.9%, and EVT volume increased 197.1%. The percentage of amputations for DFUs remained relatively unchanged, and a major: minor ratio of 0.534 was observed among all cases. Across specific procedure type and amputation status, multivariate analyses indicated equal or decreased inpatient mortality and lengths of stay since 2001, and inflation-adjusted charges generally increased. The presence of a surgical complication, however, was observed to increase by >50% for open procedures involving minor amputations and >30% for open procedures involving no amputations. Because of many potential factors, surgical complications were noted to exceed approximately 900% among cases of EVT involving major amputations beginning in 2007 relative to 2001. Conclusions: This nationally-representative investigation found that DFU admissions are common, long, and costly (often >$100,000 per case), with a marked shift having occurred from open bypass to EVT. Although hospital mortality and length of stay either remained the same or have decreased significantly, an increase in procedure-specific surgical complications was observed across several intervention categories.