In the St Vincent Declaration Action Programme 1992 [1] a number of 5-year targets were outlined, one being the intention to reduce by one-half the rate of lower limb amputation for diabetic gangrene. Considering the small amount of evidence at that time supporting this demand [2±7], it is surprising that a number of recent reports [8±16] to a large extent have fulfilled these requirements. The purpose of this paper is to document the incidence of major amputations in diabetic patients in a 15-year period in relation to a series of improvements in therapeutic measures. Subjects and methodsWe examined the clinical records of patients who underwent major leg amputations for vascular disease including diabetes in Bispebjerg Hospital in the 15 years from 1981 to 1995. Loss of the limb was recorded in 1472 cases (amputations below the ankle-disarticulation level were not included). Of these 463 (31 %) were in people with diabetes whose data are listed in Table 1. Data from the files of patients undergoing revascularisation were used to document the vascular reconstruction activity.Data for the population in Copenhagen were obtained from the Statistics Department of the Community of Copenhagen. The catchment area for amputations for Bispebjerg Hospital in the centre of Copenhagen had about 178,000 people in 1981 (Table 2). From 1992 the municipality of Copenhagen redefined its districts and this catchment area was reduced by about 36,000 people. This change has been corrected for by indicating the incidence of amputations and revascularisations per 100,000 population a year.

AimPrevious studies have found high rates of stunted linear growth in Greenlandic children. We measured growth patterns in Greenland and compared them with international growth charts.MethodsThe study cohort comprised 279 healthy children aged 6–10 years in 2012. They participated in two pregnancy and birth cohorts in Greenland and longitudinal growth data as birth was extracted from their medical records. Growth reference ranges were estimated with the lambda‐mu‐sigma (LMS) method and compared with growth charts from Denmark and the World Health Organization (WHO).ResultsThe children's mean length, weight and head circumference were significantly larger than the WHO growth charts (p < 0.001). We found that 21–28% of the children aged zero to one years exceeded the WHO growth chart for length by more than two standard deviations. For weight and head circumference, 9–16% of the children aged 0–10 years and 9–11% of the children from zero to two years exceeded the WHO charts by more than two standard deviations. The Danish references were exceeded to a lesser degree.ConclusionThis study showed that the growth of Greenlandic children up to 10 years was no longer stunted. Major determining factors suggested are genetic admixture, maternal overweight, changes in nutrition and improved health.

This study confirms the increasing prevalence of gastroschisis in Greenland in the period from 1989 to 2015. The average was 10.7 per 10,000 liveborn and -stillborn infants and, to the best of our knowledge, this is the highest prevalence ever reported. Birth Defects Research 109:836-842, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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