The Diabetic Foot Group of the Chinese Diabetes Society under the Chinese Medical Association was established in 1995. In 2012 the group was formally renamed the Diabetes Foot and Peripheral Vascular Disease Group (referred to hereafter as the Group). The review traces the Group’s development over more than 30 years, emphasizing institutional continuity and evolving scope from diabetic foot care toward integrated management of peripheral vascular disease associated with diabetes.
According to the review, the Group has produced measurable outcomes in several domains through the persistent efforts of successive generations of specialists. Key areas of progress reported include enhancement of clinical practice for patients with diabetic foot, expansion of scientific research activity in related fields, and development of training pathways for clinicians and multidisciplinary teams. The Group has also been active in promoting international academic exchanges, which the authors note contributed to raising clinical and research awareness in China.
The review summarizes these achievements at a high level rather than presenting quantitative metrics. It stresses that advances span clinical management, research output, workforce development, and external collaboration but does not provide detailed numeric indicators in the PubMed abstract.
The paper organizes the Group’s work by seven successive committees (seven generations of the Group). It provides a chronological synthesis of initiatives and areas of focus undertaken by each committee, documenting organizational milestones across three decades. The review highlights how leadership and committee structures guided clinical, academic, and educational priorities, enabling systematic efforts in training, guideline development, and collaborative activities within China and with international partners.
The abstract indicates that the paper “summarizes the work accomplished by its seven successive committees,” though full committee-level specifics and timelines are contained in the full text and are not detailed in the PubMed abstract.
A central component of the review is an analysis of gaps between China’s domestic research and practice in diabetic foot and peripheral vascular disease and the advanced international standards. The authors identify shortcomings at the national level that limit alignment with international benchmarks in research methodology, clinical pathways, and possibly evidence synthesis. The PubMed abstract reports that the paper analyzes these discrepancies but does not enumerate each gap in the abstract itself.
The review thereby frames the Group’s history in the context of measurable room for improvement and the need to adopt or adapt international best practices where appropriate.
Based on its historical review and gap analysis, the paper offers proposals for the future development of the Group. These proposals aim to strengthen clinical care, enhance research capacity, expand talent cultivation, and deepen international cooperation. The abstract describes these as forward-looking recommendations to guide the Group’s work but does not list specific action items in the abstract available on PubMed. For full recommendations, readers are referred to the full text linked through the Chinese Medical Association Publishing House.
This article is a historical review published in Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi on 2026 Sep 22 (106[35]:3665-3673). Authors listed in the PubMed record are Z R Xu and X X Ran. Affiliations are the Department of Endocrinology, the Ninth Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital (Beijing) and the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, West China Hospital, Sichuan University (Chengdu), respectively. The article is indexed with PMID 42763206 and DOI 10.3760/cma.j.cn112137-20260709-01728.
The PubMed abstract is available in Chinese with an English abstract. The publication type tags include Historical Article, English Abstract, and Review. MeSH headings assigned include China, Diabetic Foot, Peripheral Vascular Diseases, and related history terms. The authors declared no conflicts of interest in the conflict of interest statement.
Notes and access
The PubMed abstract summarizes the review’s scope and conclusions but provides limited detail on committee-specific activities, quantitative outcomes, and the precise text of the proposed future actions. Full-text access is available through the Chinese Medical Association Publishing House link provided on the PubMed page for readers who require the complete committee-level descriptions, gap analyses, and specific recommendations described in the review.