Anemic patients with diabetic foot show an higher susceptibility to multidrug resistant bacteria

Aim: Our study aimed to test if anemia could be related with an increased prevalence of multidrug resistant bacteria (MDR) in Diabetic Foot (DF) infection. Methods: We retrospectively analysed all patients admitted in our Department in 2022 for DF, dividing them in two groups according to presence (Group A) or absence (Group B) of anemia, defined as both total Hemoglobin concentration (HB) and red blood cells count (RBC) below 2 SD from normal values corrected for age and sex. We compared then groups for prevalence of MDR and resistance profiles and for their different impact on healing rate (HR), healing time (HT) and recurrence rate (RR) in the two groups. Results: We derived data of 280 patients: 164 patients in Group A [58.6%; age 70.7±11.2 yrs; male/female 77.4/22.6%; DM1/DM2 6.9/93.1%; Hba1c 57.8±19.1 mmol/mol; diabetes duration (DD) 21.2±12.4 yrs] and 116 in Group B (41.1%; age 71.1±10.7 yrs; male/female 73.2/26.8%; DM1/DM2 8.1/91.9%; Hba1c 59.1±17.2mmol/mol; DD 19.9±13.8 yrs). We evaluated the prevalence of the most represented bacterial strains: Staphylococcus Aureus (SA) was detected in 31.1% in Group A vs 21.6% in Group B (p<0.001): with prevalence of Meticillino-resistant SA of 28.4% vs 18.2% respectively (p<0.001). Pseudomonas Aeruginosa (PA) was present in 18.3% of patient in Group A and in 14% of Group B (p<0.05). No difference between two Groups in terms of resistance profile of PA. Enterobacteriaceae (EN) was detected in 16.4% of patients in Group A and in 11.2% of patients in Group B (p<0.05) and analyzing resistance profile we observed EN resistance to Fluoroquinolones in 53% of patients in Group A and 27% of patients in Group B (p<0.005) and EN producer of Extended Spectrum beta lactamase in 39% of patients in Group A vs 17% of patients in Group B (p<0.002). Conclusions: Our results suggest a higher susceptibility to MDR bacteria infection in DF ulcers in anemic patients..