Abstract
From the clinical point of view, infectious complications in diabetic foot syndrome represent a serious problem as they increase the number of amputations, the number of hospitalizations and their duration, thus also increasing treatment costs. Infection should be diagnosed rapidly and correctly and treatment should be timely and aggressive.
Such treatment involves not only the control and stabilisation of diabetes and nutritional status, but also adequate local therapy, avoiding overloading of the lower limb to prevent the infection from spreading, control and potential improvement of the vascular supply and especially antibiotic therapy. Initially, antibiotic treatment may be empirical and but should be targeted to the causal agent if response is unsatisfactory.
Antibiotic therapy should be timely and aggressive, i.e. administered in sufficient doses for a sufficient period of time. Thus, most infectious complications of diabetic foot syndrome may be managed and limb amputation or life-threatening sepsis may be avoided.