The impact of gender on amputation

The purpose of this report is to compare the proportion of lower extremity amputations among men and women with and without diabetes mellitus. We abstracted data from a database supplied by the State of New York for 14,555 nontraumatic amputations performed from 1990 through 1991, 58.8% of which were performed on patients with diabetes mellitus. We categorized amputations into three different levels (foot, leg, and thigh). Fifty-seven percent of the diabetes mellitus group were male, compared with 50% of the nondiabetic group. Men were younger than women regardless of the level of amputation in both the diabetic and nondiabetic population. Men with and without diabetes were significantly more likely to have a foot amputation, while diabetic and nondiabetic women were more likely to have a thigh amputation. When controlling for age, prevalence of vascular disease was not significantly different by gender in diabetic and nondiabetic groups at all amputation levels.