Safety and Effectiveness of Therapeutic Magnetic Resonance in the Management of Postsurgical Lesion of the Diabetic Foot

To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of therapeutic magnetic resonance (TMR) in the management of the diabetic foot (DF), we treated a group of consecutive type 2 diabetic inpatients with wide postsurgical lesions (Group A: N = 10; age 67.7 +/- 18.9 years, duration of diabetes 22.3 +/- 6.6 years, 8.1 +/- 1.1%, body mass index 29.4 +/- 2.1 kg/m(2)), for 2 consecutive weeks, while admitted, with a low-intensity magnetic resonance equipment, in addition to standard treatment. Patients, compared with a matched control group with the same clinical characteristics (Group B), were then followed monthly for 6 months to evaluate healing rate (HR), healing time (HT), rate of granulation tissue (GT) at 3 months, and adverse events. HR was of 90% in Group A and 30% in Group B (P < .05); GT was 73.7 +/- 13.2% in Group A versus 51.84 +/- 18.77% in Group B (P < .05). HT in Group A was 84.46 +/- 54.38 days versus 148.54 +/- 78.96 days in Group B (P < .01). No difference in adverse events (5 in Group A and 6 in Group B) was observed throughout the study period. In this pilot study, the use of TMR at this dose and duration was safe. The results also permit the observation that TMR plus standard care offered a faster healing rate compared with standard care alone.