Can We Treat Diabetic Foot Osteomyelitis Without Surgical Intervention?
The question of whether osteomyelitis of the diabetic foot can be treated without surgical intervention is often debated. Many clinicians feel that osteomyelitis cannot be treated effectively if one does not excise infected bone early on in the infectious process. Other physicians have argued that one can address osteomyelitis with minimal debridement and appropriate antibiotic treatment, and that physicians should reserve surgical debridement for those patients who are unresponsive to treatment or those with limb-threatening infections.2 In their retrospective study of 147 patients with osteomyelitis, Game and Jeffcoate treated 113 patients with antibiotics alone. Of those 113 patients, 93 (82.3 percent) achieved remission without surgery. The remaining 34 either underwent minor amputation (28 patients) or major amputation (six patients). Of the 28 undergoing minor amputations, 22 achieved remission (78.6 percent).2 In both groups, the two most common oral antibiotic regimens were eit
