Research Description
Diabetic patients have an increased risk for developing foot wounds, which may lead to soft tissue or bone infection. Not all patients with infected wounds curatively respond to antibiotic treatment. In some cases, severe or non-responsive infection must be treated by amputation of the affected area. Amputations may have serious repercussions for diabetic patients: loss of limb is often mentally traumatic, financially burdensome, and may result in chronic pain and reduced mobility. Investigation of screening methods that could predict treatment response and clinical outcome have the potential to personalize treatment and prognosis. By studying the proteins in tissue samples from patients with diabetic foot infection for whom the outcome of treatment is known, the investigator aims to cluster patients into subcategories with common protein characteristics. With these similarities and differences catalogued, physicians will be able to precisely classify patients based on the statistical likelihood that a particular clinical treatment strategy will provide the best response for an individual. Certain proteins may be linked to a successful treatment response. From a radiological perspective, these proteins could be used to develop imaging studies that segregate the patients into groups whereby physicians can quickly initiate the appropriate therapy. This exploratory study will improve and expedite treatment delivery for patients with diabetic foot infection and ultimately reduce the risk of amputation.Research Profile
What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?This project covers a major complication area in diabetes research, namely foot infections. If successful it will lay a foundation for personalized treatment of diabetic foot infections. Foot infections are a major complication of diabetes. Historically little attention has been given to personalized management as current treatment approaches focus more on the causative pathogen and less on the affected individual. Our project will test the hypothesis that the type of infection, soft tissue or bone, has a particular protein expression profile, called a proteomic profile, that can be targeted for personalized treatment approaches. We hope to define those profiles using foot wound biopsy tissues we have obtained from patients over the years of our practice.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?We believe the research supported by this project may help doctors in the future to personalize treatment of your infection.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?In my medical practice, we perform lots of imaging studies in persons with diabetes and foot infections. Being involved in diabetes research improves my clinical practice through knowledge I gain and gives me satisfaction that I am contributing to improved methods in diagnosing a major problem for patients with diabetes. This award will allow us to undertake a project that may uncover new understanding of the different molecular pathways in soft tissue versus bone infections, whether the differences be qualitative or quantitative. We may uncover new targets for molecular imaging of foot infection in persons with diabetes. Also, we expect one day proteomic methods will become routine clinical tools that inform treatment decisions. Since we know the outcome for samples in our project the study could provide predictive information for physicians treating patients in the future.
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?I see the future of diabetes research going towards understanding the disease and complications at the personalized level. In my field of imaging, we believe one day imaging studies will be used to determine if particular molecular pathways are active in an individual's infection and whether specific micro-organisms are alive in the infection. Non-invasive molecular imaging, developed from the studies of the underlying pathophysiology, will allow physicians to get diagnoses, form treatment plans, and evaluate response to treatment without potential side effects or sampling errors of biopsies.