Over 70,000 people in the UK have a foot ulcer at any one time. The cost of treating a foot ulcer for one year is a staggering £7,000.1
Our NHS spends over £700 million per year on treating foot ulcers and performing amputations. And that excludes knock-on social and economic costs.
Dryness of the skin of the feet assessed by the neuropad® screening test correlates with the potential for foot ulceration.2
What this means is that neuropad® may pick up diabetes-related foot problems early so that more serious complications may be avoided through initiation of timely treatment.
For example, a study involving 379 patients with diabetes has shown that dryness of the skin of the feet correlates with foot ulceration.2 Subclinical sudomotor dysfunction can be detected early in diabetes, even in subjects with normal nerve conduction velocities. This study showed that dryness of the skin of the feet was detected in 95% of the patients with foot ulceration using the neuropad® test. An abnormal neuropad® response correlated with foot ulceration in subjects with diabetes. Patients with foot ulceration had more severe peripheral neuropathy and more often an abnormal neuropad® response. Multivariate statistical analysis demonstrated that patients with diabetes with an abnormal neuropad® response are 16 times more likely to develop foot ulceration compared to those with a normal neuropad® test result. 2 The neuropad® screening test has what is known as high SENSITIVITY. In clinical trials, the sensitivity and specificity of neuropad® was comparable to that of well-established hospital-based tests.
Having a high sensitivity means that when the test is carried out a high proportion of people tested have a positive result subsequently confirmed by hospital-based tests. In clinical studies, this has ranged from 70%-86%. In line with most screening tests, neuropad® has a lower rate of specificity (the proportion of people with a negative result who do not have peripheral autonomic neuropathy) which is typical for a screening test.
The principle behind the neuropad® screening test is that it may detect potential problems several years before conventional tests for peripheral autonomic neuropathy are able to. This is because only when damage to the small and large nerve fibres in your feet has affected your ability to feel sensation – for example when prodded with monofilament or put into direct content with a tuning fork – will problems be detectable. Of course monofilament and tuning fork tests are subjective, whereas neuropad®, on the other hand, is not a subjective test but is categorical.
Dr Sarah Jarvis MBE introduces the Neuropad(R) 10-Minute Screening Test(R): ‘the canary in the coal mine’ – a simple, painless, non-invasive and objective test for the early identification of diabetes related foot problems. Prevention is always better than cure.
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