Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Diabetic Foot Ulcer Care: Advances in Diagnosis, Treatment, Prognosis, and Novel Therapeutic Strategies.

BACKGROUND

Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) affect 19% to 34% of individuals with diabetes during their lifetime and account for over one million nontraumatic lower-limb amputations annually. Standard care often fails to detect early, subclinical changes, leading to delayed intervention and high mortality rates. This review examines how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can extract complex patterns from diverse data modalities to advance DFU care.

METHODS

We examined AI/ML applications in DFU care across four domains: diagnosis (automated image and thermogram classification, biomechanical risk stratification), treatment optimization (AI-driven offloading prescriptions, tele-rehabilitation, molecularly informed wound care), prognosis (neural network and random forest models for risk assessment), and novel strategy development (generative AI, transcriptomic target discovery, wearable digital biomarkers).

RESULTS

Artificial intelligence/ML methodologies have demonstrated promising results in DFU image and thermogram analysis, with reported accuracies ranging from 81-97% across different studies. Biomechanical ML models show potential for dynamic risk stratification, and prognostic models achieve moderate performance with area under the curve values around 0.74-0.82. Generative AI approaches have shown promise for data augmentation, improving segmentation performance in limited datasets.

CONCLUSION

Despite promising advances, several challenges impede clinical translation, including data standardization, model explainability, regulatory compliance, clinical workflow integration, prospective validation, and equitable implementation. Collaborative efforts among clinicians, data scientists, regulators, and patients are essential to translate AI-driven innovations into routine DFU management, potentially reducing amputations and improving outcomes for this global health burden.