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Abstract Aims Diabetic foot complications, a serious consequence of diabetes mellitus, are associated with a tremendous burden on both individual patients and health care systems. Since prevention strategies may reduce the incidence of this complication, identification of risk factors in large longitudinal studies is essential to optimize early detection and personalized screening of patients at increased risk. Materials and methods We conducted a registry‐based retrospective cohort study using data from 10,688 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus aged ≥18 years. Cox regression models were used to identify risk factors for foot complications while adjusting for potential confounders. Results We observed 140 diabetic foot complications in our patient cohort. The multivariate Cox regression model revealed neuropathy, peripheral arterial disease and male gender as being positively associated with foot complications. The same effect was detected for nephropathy in the time >10 years after T2DM diagnosis. For higher age at diagnosis and use of insulin, however, a negative association was retrieved. Conclusion Male gender and several diabetes‐related comorbidities were identified as risk factors for subsequent initial foot complications in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. These findings suggest that personalized early detection of patients at increased risk might be feasible by using information on demographics, medical history and comorbidities.

Abstract Aims With increasing numbers of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) worldwide, the number of associated diabetic foot complications might also increase. This systematic review was performed to summarize published data about risk factors for the diabetic foot (DF) syndrome in order to improve the identification of high‐risk patients. Materials and methods Six electronic databases were searched for publications up to August 2019 using predefined stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results Of 9,476 identified articles, 31 articles from 28 different study populations fulfilled the criteria for our evaluation. The overall quality of the studies was good, and the risk of bias was low. There was large heterogeneity among the studies concerning study protocols and patient populations analysed. A total of 79 risk factors were analysed within this review. The majority of studies described a consistently positive association with different outcomes of interest related to DF for gender, peripheral neuropathy, retinopathy, nephropathy, poor glycaemic control, insulin use, duration of diabetes, smoking and height. For age, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and body mass index, the results remain inconsistent. Conclusion A most up‐to‐date literature review resulted in glycaemic control and smoking as the only amenable risk factors with a consistently positive association for DF. Due to the high personal and financial burden associated with DF and the large heterogeneity among included studies, additional longitudinal studies in large patient populations are necessary to identify more modifiable risk factors that can be used in the prediction and prevention of DF complications.