ArticleAmerican journal of translational research2026
Combined PDGF and ANGPTL4 in diabetic foot: diagnostic value and exploratory early changes after plantar arch angioplasty plus alprostadil.
Article in American journal of translational research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the diagnostic value of combined platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) and angiopoietin-like protein 4 (ANGPTL4) for distinguishing diabetic foot (DF) from diabetes mellitus (DM) without DF, and to explore their early changes following treatment initiation and their associations with 3-month ulcer healing.
methodsClinical data were retrospectively collected from January 2024 to May 2025. Before propensity score matching (PSM), 153 patients with DF and 116 non-DF DM patients met the eligibility criteria; after 1:1 PSM, 97 patients were retained in each group. Serum PDGF and ANGPTL4 were measured at baseline in both groups, with additional measurements taken on day 5 after the initiation of plantar arch angioplasty (PAA) and alprostadil in the DF group. The primary analysis evaluated the diagnostic performance of the baseline biomarkers using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, while secondary exploratory analyses assessed their day-5 changes and associations with 3-month ulcer healing.
resultsAt baseline, PDGF was 26.23% lower and ANGPTL4 was 32.22% higher in the DF group than in the matched DM group (both P<0.05). The combined baseline model yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.805, surpassing the performance of either biomarker alone. Both biomarkers were also associated with ulcer size, Wagner grade, fasting plasma glucose, and hemoglobin A1c. On day 5 after PAA and alprostadil initiation, PDGF significantly increased and ANGPTL4 significantly decreased relative to baseline (both P<0.05). At 3 months, 66 of 97 patients achieved complete ulcer healing; the combined day-5 model discriminated healing status with an AUC of 0.764, a sensitivity of 59.09%, and a specificity of 87.10%.
conclusionThe combination of baseline PDGF and ANGPTL4 improved DF discrimination compared with either biomarker alone. Their day-5 changes and associations with 3-month ulcer healing were exploratory and should not be interpreted as evidence of treatment efficacy or validated prognostic utility.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.