A follow-up study of leg and foot ulcer patients.

Three hundred and fifty patients treated in 1980 at the Department of Dermatology for leg and foot ulcers were asked to come for an interview concerning the development of their ulcerations up to the end of 1983. Forty-five of 186 patients were free from ulcers from 1981 to 1983. Thirty patients had leg ulcers continuously throughout the period and their ulcers were not healed at any time. Ninety-six patients had died during the follow-up period, and the total mortality rate compared to an age-matched population was shown to be approximately doubled for both men and women. When analysing the causes of death, it was found that the ischemic heart disease mortality rate was twice that of the age-matched population but the mortality rate for malignant diseases was about the same.