Current and emerging therapies in the management of diabetic foot ulcers.

BACKGROUND: Diabetic foot ulcers are one of the major causes of mortality in diabetic patients. Very few drugs and therapies have regulatory approval for this indication and several agents from diverse pharmacological classes are currently in various phases of clinical trials for the management of diabetic foot ulcers.

SCOPE: The purpose of this review is to provide concise information of the drugs and therapies which are approved and present in clinical trials.

REVIEW METHODS: This review was carried out by systematic searches of relevant guidelines, patents, published articles, reviews and abstracts in PubMed/Medline, Web of Science, clinicaltrials.gov, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Google Scholar of all English language articles up to 1 March 2015. The following search terms were used: diabetes, diabetic foot, diabetic foot ulcer, diabetic wound, diabetic foot infections, wound management, randomized controlled trials, approved treatments, new treatments and clinical trials.

CONCLUSIONS: The various drugs and therapies for the management of diabetic foot ulcers comprise antibiotics, neuropathic drugs, wound dressings, skin substitutes, growth factors and inflammatory modulators. The majority of these therapies target the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers to address the altered biochemical composition of the diabetic wound. However, no single treatment can be definitively recommended for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.