Clinical Infectious Diseases: Open Access

Introduction: Diabetes is a public health problem. It exposes to metabolic and chronic complications but also infectious ones. The latter can destabilize diabetes and increase morbidity and mortality. This prompted us to carry out this study, the objective of which is to describe the infectious complications of diabetes in the department of internal medicine and medical specialties of Ndamatou Hospital in Touba Senegal, Diourbel region.

Patients and methods: This is a descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study of diabetic subjects hospitalized with an infection over a four-year period from January 2017 to December 2020.

Results: During the study period, 439 patients were hospitalized for diabetes. Of these patients, 195 diabetics had an infection, a frequency of 44.42%. The mean age was 52.10 years. The age group 60-69 was the most represented with 26.9%. There were 114 women (58.5%), i.e., a sex ratio (m/f) of 0.71. Most patients came from Touba with 151 cases (77.5%). Type 2 diabetes was predominantly represented with 82.1%. Fiftyfour (54) patients, i.e., 27.7%, had inaugural diabetes. Most patients had diabetes for less than 5 years (73 cases, 37.4%). The average length of hospitalization was 5.66 days with extremes of 1 to 31 days. Ketoacidosis was noted in 126 patients (64.6%), hyperglycemia in 55 patients (28.2%), hyperosmolar imbalance in 3 patients 6 (3.1%) and hypoglycemia in 2 cases (1%). The most frequent infections were cutaneous 45.7% (n=89), followed by urogenital 19.5% (n=49) and respiratory 19.5% (n=38). Abscesses predominated in skin infections 57.3% followed by diabetic feet 30.4%. The average consultation time was 8.26 days with extremes ranging from 1 to 31 days. 28 patients (14.4%) were consulted after 15 days. The case fatality rate was 5.1% (n=10).

Conclusion: Infectious complications in diabetes are not trivial. Therapeutic education is essential for a more effective and efficient prevention and a reduction of mortality.