The Ratio of Serum Uric Acid to Glycosylated Haemoglobin as a Predictor of All-Mortality in Elderly Patients with Diabetic Foot Ulcers: A Longitudinal Cohort Study.

Aim: To clarify the relationship between serum uric acid (UA) and glycosylated hemoglobin (UA/HbA1c) ratio and all-cause mortality in patients with diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs).

Methods: A total of 172 inpatients with DFUs (PEDIS grades 2-4) were eligible for inclusion in this study from 2018 to 2023. This was a retrospective, longitudinal cohort study. All subjects were followed up every 6 months for a median of 60 months. According to the cutoff value of the UA/HbA1c ratio of 39.07 obtained from ROC analysis, the participants were divided into two groups: low-level (≤ 39.07, n = 107) and high-level (> 39.07, n = 65) groups. The correlation between UA/HbA1c ratio and all-cause mortality was also evaluated by Cox regression analysis TheKaplan-Meier survival curve analysis and Log rank tests were used to assess the incidence rates of all-cause mortality. The contribution rate of risk factors was estimated by the population-attributable risk percentage (PAR%) analysis.

Results: ROC analysis showed that the optimal cutoff values for UA and the UA/HbA1c ratio were 372 μmol/L and 39.07, respectively. Multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that a high UA/HbA1c ratio (HR =4.63; 95% CI = 2.004-10.7, < 0.001) was independently associated with a high risk of all-cause mortality in patients with DFUs. Stratified analysis indicated that subjects aged ≥ 60 years had a greater risk of all-cause mortality associated with a high UA/HbA1c ratio (HR = 4.450; 95% CI = 1.711-11.574, = 0.002). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that all-cause mortality had a significant positive association with a high UA/HbA1c ratio (log-rank, < 0.001) and a significant negative correlation with the lowered HbA1c level (< 6.5%) after a follow-up of 32 months (log-rank, < 0.001). The population attributable risk percentage (PAR%) analysis suggested that the contribution rate of the high-level UA/HbA1c ratio to all-cause mortality was 33.7%, which was much greater than the 19.69% of UA.

Conclusion: In brief, our study showed that for every 1.0% increase in the UA/HbA1c ratio, the all-cause mortality rate in elderly patients with DFUs aged ≥ 60 years increased by 3.45-fold. For elderly patients with DFUs, a safe and effective strategy to reduce all-cause mortality is to strictly control serum UA levels to < 372 μmol/L and appropriately loosen the control goal of HbA1c to ≥ 6.5%.