How Might Metformin Impact Digital Amputation Outcomes?
What was the primary research question associated with your team’s poster, and generally, how did you structure your investigation?
While researching senolytic drugs, we reviewed patients who had toe amputations. Metformin was one of the drugs found to have senolytic and senomorphic properties. We examined the healing potential for toe amputations for patients taking metformin compared to those taking insulin. It was a retrospective study, and groups were matched for age, gender, and date of initial amputation. Their hemoglobin A1cs were similar.
What were your primary findings?
We found that patients taking metformin healed faster with fewer midfoot and major amputations than patients taking insulin.
What do you hope the audience will take away from this research?
I definitely hope that they'll consider adding metformin for patients who are already on insulin. This may help their wound healing potential improve. Senolytic drugs are a new class of drugs, and studies have found many benefits for many chronic diseases. Many studies and clinical trials are ongoing. We plan to do more studies at our institution on wound healing using metformin and other senolytic drugs.
