An amputation should trigger more than a wound-care plan. New Swedish data sharpen the case for coordinated cardiovascular care—and a longer view of recovery.
After Amputation, the Heart Still Needs Our Attention
Preserving the Foot from Both Ends: Is Anterior/Posterior Limb Preservation Functionally Worthwhile? #ActAgainstAmputation
A Georgetown-centered case series asks whether partial calcanectomy after midfoot amputation can preserve both the limb and meaningful walking. The answer is encouraging, but anatomy and function are not the same outcome.
The Barometer in the Bloodstream: Forecasting Amputation Risk in the Diabetic Foot from Inflammation and Nutrition #ActAgainstAmputation @ALPSLimb @FrontiersIn #DFU #Amputation
In 1,052 patients with diabetic foot ulcers, ten inflammation- and nutrition-derived ratios from routine labs tracked with amputation — and a machine-learning model combining them reached an AUC of 0.894. A cheap blood draw may help forecast which limbs are at risk.
One in Four by Twelve Weeks, One in Ten Amputated by Thirty-Two: The Diabetic Foot Consortium Just Handed Us the Real Denominator #DFU #ActAgainstAmputation #ALPSLimb #NIDDK
Every one of us has quoted a healing rate. In clinic, in a grant, in a talk, in a conversation with a patient sitting on the exam table asking the only question that matters: will this close? Most of those quoted numbers came from the control arms of industry trials, which is a bit like... Continue Reading →
Vibe Coding a Silent Crisis: How Conversational AI Built Three Health Advocacy Platforms in Under a Week #ActAgainstAmputation #VibeCoding @CaitlinWHicks @KeckSchool_USC @ALPSLimb #LimbPreservation @SurgJournal
Now published in Surgery: one clinician used conversational AI to vibe-code three interactive data platforms (local, national, and global), translating 15 years of amputation evidence into public tools in under a week at essentially no cost.
Baskets, Not Buckets: Borrowing the Cancer Playbook — Again — for Hard-to-Heal Wounds #ActAgainstAmputation #WoundCare #BasketTrial #DFU #VLU @ALPSLimb
Windy Cole and colleagues propose a master-protocol basket trial that borrows oncology's tissue-agnostic playbook for hard-to-heal wounds — testing a single mechanism-targeted therapy across diabetic foot and venous leg ulcers under one Bayesian, sham-controlled design. We've spent a decade framing the diabetic foot like cancer; here, the trial architecture grows up to match.
The Other World Cup: With Croatia’s New Translation, the #IWGDF Guidelines Continue to Reach Patients on Every Inhabited Continent ⚽🌍🦶#ActAgainstAmputation @IWGDF @alpslimb
The World Cup isn't the only global tournament underway. Thanks to Anica Badanjak and Anela Novak's new Croatian translation, the IWGDF Guidelines now reach patients in a native language on every inhabited continent on Earth — every single one.
A Foot Ulcer Is a Whole-Body Diagnosis: New 5698 Patient Cohort Puts DFU Survival Back in the Cancer Conversation — But There’s Hope #DiabeticFoot #ActAgainstAmputation #ToeandFlow
A new 5,698-patient real-world cohort from Valladolid (Del Río-Solá et al., Adv Wound Care 2026) reports 61.8% five-year survival overall, falling to 32.1% after major amputation — and concludes the diabetic foot ulcer should be treated as a marker of advanced systemic disease, not an isolated wound. The newest entry in a fifteen-year line of evidence putting DFU mortality squarely in the cancer conversation.
Hiding in Plain Sight: The #MedicareShoeBill Is Our Most Underused Lifesaver #ActAgainstAmputation @alpslimb
Ninety percent of clinicians know about the Medicare Therapeutic Shoe Benefit and nearly all recommend shoes, yet fewer than one in five eligible patients ever gets them. A new study from Ryan Crews and Carol Kurth shows the bottleneck isn't awareness. It's friction.
Malvern at 40, and 30 Years On: One Last Bow for Profs. Boulton and Rayman, and a Long Road Ahead #Malvern40 #ActAgainstAmputation #DFCon #LimbPreservation @ALPSLimb
Forty years of the Malvern Diabetic Foot Meeting. Thirty years of mine. One last bow from Andrew Boulton in the chair. A look back at the long arc — from a Benedictine priory in 1085 to Joslin in 1928 to DFCon in 2000 to ALPS in 2020 — and a look forward to DFCon 26, DFUpdate, traveling fellowships, and the next generation already climbing the hill.
