An association between diabetic foot ulcers and
advanced diabetic nephropathy has been shown [24-26],
and both of these conditions are associated with a long
duration of diabetes. Ndip et al. [26] have recently
reported that the prevalence of foot ulcers was five-fold
higher in dialysis-treated diabetes patients than in
pre-dialysis diabetes patients, calling attention to the
importance of dialysis as a risk factor for foot ulceration.
In this study, none of our dialysis patients had foot
ulcers during the collection of the baseline data. However,
three of the dialysis patients, all with diabetes,
had lower extremity amputation, and significantly more
diabetic than non-diabetic dialysis patients reported
walking disability.