Laterality of lower limb amputation in diabetic patients: retrospective audit.

We obtained information from the database of the Chiltern Diabetes Centre, which records the details of around 2000 diabetic patients attending hospital clinics in South Buckinghamshire. Patients’ details are recorded on the computer system at each clinic visit. For our audit, we extracted details from the database by setting up structured queries in the Microsoft Access program. Raw data consisted of one entry per patient. If a patient had more than one amputation, the level of the last amputation only was recorded. We excluded patients with bilateral amputations (0.5%). We performed ÷ tests (without continuity correction) to investigate any difference in laterality of amputation. The table shows data for 1876 diabetic patients, 219 (11.7%) of whom had had unilateral amputation. When we used ÷ tests to compare the sites of amputation between the left and right side, the differences between the two sides were highly significant for all levels.