Effectiveness of offloading interventions to heal foot ulcers in persons with diabetes: a systematic review.

Background: Offloading interventions are commonly used in clinical practice to heal foot ulcers. The aim of this updated systematic review is to investigate the effectiveness of offloading interventions to heal diabetic foot ulcers.

Methods: We updated our previous systematic review search of PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases to also include original studies published between July 29, 2014 and August 13, 2018 relating to four offloading intervention categories in populations with diabetic foot ulcers: (a) offloading devices, (b) footwear, (c) other offloading techniques, and (d) surgical offloading techniques.