What are the common organisms causing diabetic foot infections?
Dr Anand Moses, Chennai Diabetic foot infection are common and may develop despite the best efforts in patient care and education. Successful management requires a combined medical and surgical approach. A good knowledge of the common organism causing foot infection will help in the treatment and selection of appropriate antimicrobial agents. The most common infectious problem in the diabetic foot is the infected neuropathic ulcer. Infection begins with the onset of warmth, redness and purulent exudate. Few cases, cultures yield a pure growth of S. aureus and these patients respond well to therapy. But most infections are caused by multiple organisms, usually a mixture of aerobes and anaerobes. Of the aerobic gram–positive cocci, the organism most frequently seen include beta–hemolytic streptococci, both enterococci and non-enterococci and S. aureus. Among aerobic and facultative anaerobic gram-negative bacilli, Escherichia coli and Proteus mirabilis are most prevalent; Pseudomonas aer
