Background: Current information were still limited regarding clinical characteristics, diagnosis, and treatment efficacy of calcaneal osteomyelitis (CO). The present study summarized similarities and differences between diabetes-related CO (DRCO) and trauma-related CO (TRCO) based on synthesis analysis of literature-reported cases.
Methods: We searched the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases to find English studies reporting DRCO and TRCO published between January 2000 and December 2021. Effective data were extracted and synthesized for comparisons.
Results: Altogether 108 studies with 278 DRCO and 403 TRCO patients were analyzed. The ratio of females among the DRCO patients was significantly higher than that of the TRCO patients (37.4% vs 24.3%, P < 0.001). The median age at diagnosis of the DRCO patients was statistically older than the TRCO patients (56 vs 44 years, P < 0.001). The median symptom duration of the DRCO patients was longer than the TRCO patients (4 vs 2 months, P = 0.136), with ulcer and sinus as the top symptoms for the DRCO and TRCO patients, respectively. The positive rate of pathogen culture for the DRCO patients was significantly higher than that for the TRCO patients (94.8% vs 69.5%, P < 0.001). The DRCO patients had higher risks of infection relapse (32.3% vs 16.3%, P < 0.001) and amputation (24.8% vs 1.4%, P < 0.001), and a higher all-cause mortality (4.9% vs 1.3%, P = 0.03) than the TRCO patients.
Conclusion: DRCO and TRCO shared similar and different clinical features and diagnostic issues. However, compared with TRCO, the clinical efficacy and prognosis of DRCO were worse.

Keywords: calcaneal osteomyelitis, diabetic foot, post-traumatic osteomyelitis, fracture-related infection, synthesis analysis