Navigating Treatment Pathways in Diabetic Foot Infection: A Practical Retrospective Analysis of Healing Predictors and the WIfI System.

Most wounds in this DFI cohort were deep, and osteomyelitis was common.

• 69 patients with diabetes and confirmed DFI were included (mean age 56.4 ± 13.2 years; 58% male).
• Deep wounds made up 88.2% of cases.
• Osteomyelitis occurred in 42.2% of patients.

Most patients were managed conservatively, with bedside debridement being the most common procedure.

• Conservative wound care was used in 73.9% of patients.
• 79.7% underwent bedside debridement.

Amputation rates were low, with major amputation in only 1.4% of patients.

• Minor amputation rate was 16.2%.
• Major amputation rate was 1.4%.
• The authors state limb-preserving management was associated with a low major amputation rate.

Healing time was highly variable, with a median of 45 days and a mean of 56 days.

• Median healing time was 45 days (interquartile range [IQR] 54).
• Mean healing time was 56.0 ± 44.9 days.

Healing duration correlated with several clinical, laboratory, and process variables.

• Correlated variables: wound grade, WIfI stage, infection severity, ESR, WBC count, INR, wound area, and delay to specialist assessment.
• Analysis used correlation followed by multiple linear regression.

Wound grade was the only independent predictor of healing time in multiple regression.

• β = 0.606, p = 0.001.
• Other correlated variables, including WIfI stage, ESR, WBC, INR, wound area and referral delay, were not independent predictors after adjustment.

The authors conclude that wound severity was the strongest determinant of healing duration, supporting early referral and structured risk stratification.

• Study was a retrospective cross-sectional analysis at a tertiary referral multidisciplinary centre, including patients presenting since 2022.
• Wounds were classified using the WIfI system.