Is an increase in skin temperature predictive of neuropathic foot ulceration in people with diabetes? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the strength of the existing research to answer the question: Is an increase in skin temperature predictive of neuropathic foot ulceration in people with diabetes?

Methods: This study is a systematic review and meta-analysis of temperature-monitoring in the prediction and prevention of diabetic foot ulceration. Two investigators conducted a literature search for all relevant articles from 1960 until July 2011. During this process the following data bases were searched: MEDLINE, Science Direct, AMED, Australian Medical Index, APAIS-Health, ATSIhealth, EMBASE, Web of Science and OneSearch.