Electric impedance and the healing of diabetic foot ulcers

Abstract

Diabetic foot (DF) is a complication of people suffering from diabetes mellitus (DM) with an overall prevalence estimated as 6.3%. Healing of diabetic ulcers takes several weeks, and follow up is needed both to assess the improvement of the wound and to detect possible complications. Ulcer diameter, pH and temperature have been used for such purpose and some authors have also proposed the use of Electric Bioimpedance (EBI). The results presented in this paper are taken from a small pilot study carried out to evaluate the healing effect of high quality, unrefined, whole cane sugar (“panela”) in people with unilateral diabetic foot ulcers in one of the legs. 6 volunteers (3 male and 3 female, aged between 51 and 85 mean age 71) were treated either with Triticum vulgare or with “panela” and EBI measurements (resistance or R, reactance or Xc, and phase angle or θ at 50 kHz) on both legs were taken during a follow up period of 5 weeks. Although the healing process ran well with no complications, EBI parameters did not rise during the treatment, as expected. Differences between the ulcerated and the not-ulcerated legs seem to be present (higher values for R in the affected side and lower for Xc and θ), but it does not seem to be a trend of the former towards the values of the latter. EBI values of the sample with DM are much lower than those of a sample of the 8 healthy volunteers measured for this study.