Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Mar 18, 2023; 14(3): 136-145
Published online Mar 18, 2023. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v14.i3.136
Inflammatory response in confirmed non-diabetic foot and ankle infections: A case series with normal inflammatory markers
Amr Hassan Ahmed, Shah Ahmed, Ahmed Barakat, Jitendra Mangwani, Helena White
Amr Hassan Ahmed, Shah Ahmed, Ahmed Barakat, Jitendra Mangwani, Department of Trauma and Orthopedics, Leicester University Hospitals-NHS Trust, Leicester LE1 5WW, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
Helena White, Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Leicester Royal Infirm, Leicester LE1 5WW, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Mangwani J and White H conceptualized the study design and aim; Ahmed AH and Ahmed S completed data collection and statistical analysis; Barakat A drafted the manuscript and reviewed it for final submission.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed by the Leicester University Hospitals-NHS Trust research ethics committee. No ethical approval was required due to the de-identified anonymous retrospective nature of the published laboratory data.
Informed consent statement: There was no direct or even indirect contact between researchers and patients, with no necessity for "Signed Informed Consent Form" to carry out our study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ahmed Barakat, MBChB, MSc, Surgeon, Department of Trauma and Orthopedics, Leicester University Hospitals-NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Leicester Headquarters, Level 3, Balmoral Building, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Infirmary Square, Leicester LE1 5WW, Leicestershire, United Kingdom. ahmedharoonbarakat@gmail.com
Received: July 9, 2022
Peer-review started: July 9, 2022
First decision: September 26, 2022
Revised: October 23, 2022
Accepted: January 31, 2023
Article in press: January 31, 2023
Published online: March 18, 2023
Processing time: 250 Days and 15.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Distinction between foot and ankle wound healing complications as opposed to infection is crucial for appropriate and efficacious allocation of antibiotic therapy. Multiple reports have focused on diagnostic accuracy of different inflammatory markers, however, mainly in the diabetic population. Our aim was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of white cell count and C-reactive protein as diagnostic tools for this distinction in the non-diabetic cohort.