Abstract

This retrospective study was conducted on diabetic patients with skin lesions attending two private clinics in Aden, during the period January 2013 to December 2014. Two hundred and nine diabetic patients, 123 (58.9%) females and 86 (41.1%) males, enrolled in this study. Their ages ranged from 12 to 88 years, with a mean age 54.7 ± 13.8 years. The majority of patients (91.8%) were with type II DM and 8.2% with type I DM. 50.2% of patients with type II DM were in the age group 41-60 years, while in type I DM patients of age ≤ 40 years represents 5% (p < 0.05). The duration of diabetes was ≤ 5 years in 88 (42.1%) patients and 121 (57.9%) had diabetes > 5 years. The majority of patients 90.4% had single type of skin lesions and 9.6% had combination of two types of skin lesions. The various types of skin lesions were: tineapedis 44 (19.2%), pruritis 22 (9.6%), diabetic dermopathy 19 (8.3%), pyoderma 17 (7.5%), eczema 15 (6.6%) and the last four diseases were xanthoma (1.7%), necrobiosis lipoidica (1.3%), lipid dystrophy (1.3%) and psoriasis vulgaris 2 (0.9%). We concluded that skin involvement occurs quite often in diabetic patients. A need exist to provide information, education and communication to diabetic patients so as to increase their awareness.