Stem Cell Therapy for Diabetic Foot Wounds

Every 30 seconds, a person loses a leg due to diabetes in the world. With timely intervention and new methods, it is possible to prevent limb loss by 80 to 85 percent. 80 percent of the diabetic population in the world lives in underdeveloped and developing countries. Diabetes, one of the biggest health problems, is the most common cause of blindness, amputation and dialysis-related kidney failure in the world.

How Does Diabetes Affect Feet?

It is known that the rate of a diabetic patient to encounter a wound on their foot throughout their life is 20 percent. Unfortunately, 40 to 60 percent of these patients face the risk of losing their leg.

What Causes Diabetic Foot?

Diabetic foot wounds have two important causes: vascular occlusion and nerve damage. In fact, vascular occlusion is a process that begins in people from birth. While everyone is at risk of vascular occlusion, the vascular occlusion process progresses much faster in diabetic patients. Diabetes causes blockage of the veins below the knees in particular.

In addition to all these, nerve damage occurs in patients with high blood sugar. Nerve damage makes the patient unable to feel and distinguish pain, ache, heat and cold. Therefore, the patient can walk around all day without noticing a small stone or foreign object in their shoe. This situation causes pressure sores on the feet. Generally speaking, the rate of wound formation in diabetic patients due to vein occlusion alone is known to be 15 percent. However, the group in which diabetic foot wounds are most frequently seen is the group with both vein occlusion and nerve damage.

What is Diabetic Foot Treatment?

First of all, wound care plays an important role. If the patient has a vein occlusion and there is not enough blood flow to the wound, balloon angioplasty or bypass methods are applied to provide blood flow to the area. However, the procedure is not limited to this. At the same time, diabetic patients also have a number of biological problems and therefore their fight against infection is weak. In this sense, infection is fought by using antibiotics. Since the dead tissue in the wound contains microbes, this situation causes the foot wound of diabetic patients not to heal. For this reason, dead tissue is surgically cleaned and removed once or twice a week.

How is Stem Cell Treatment in Diabetic Feet?

Stem cell treatment also comes to the rescue in biological deficiencies. Stem cells can be taken from different points such as bone marrow and fat tissue. There is no single weapon that can intervene in all the factors that cause diabetic foot wounds. In this sense, stem cells are an important trump card in the treatment of diabetic foot wounds. When a diabetic patient comes to be treated with a wound, the patient's recovery rate is around 80 percent. It is aimed to increase this rate even higher with stem cell treatment.

​​​​​Diabetic foot wounds are one of the most important reasons why diabetic patients stay in the hospital for long periods. The risk of amputation is 15-40 times higher in diabetic patients compared to the normal population. Diabetic foot wounds, which are seen in 25 percent of diabetic patients, can result in amputation of the foot or toe in 8 percent. Since treatment options for diabetic foot patients are limited, amputation is often used as a last resort.

However, the mortality rate in the first 5 years after diabetic foot amputation is between 39 percent and 68 percent. Today, cellular therapy applications for wound healing are emerging as a new and effective method. In wound treatment, treatment of diabetic foot wounds can be made possible thanks to the regenerative cells applied to the surgical area. In addition to the effect of cellular therapy applications on diabetic wound healing, the fact that it can be applied to chronic or acute wounds also shows that it has serious potential.