Aim of the study: To study the effect of topical phenytoin in healing of grade I and II diabetic foot ulcers. Background: Diabetic foot ulcers entail a lot of financial burden both to the patients and also to the treating hospitals. These are estimated to affect 15% of all diabetic individuals during their lifetime. These precede almost 85% of amputations. In India, prevalence of diabetic foot ulcer in clinical population is 3.61%. Increase in the prevalence of foot complications in India is attributed to socio-cultural practices such as bare foot walking, religious practices like walking on fire, use of improper foot wear and lack of knowledge regarding foot care. The three etiological mechanisms involved in formation of diabetic foot ulcer are-ischemia, neuropathy and infection.Phenytoin has been used by some workers and the possible mechanisms of its action in ulcer healing have been described as-increase in the proliferation of fibroblasts, increase in the deposition of collagen, neovascularisation, enhanced granulation tissue formation, decrease in the action of collagenase, decrease in bacterial contamination by removing Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella species, and Pseudomonas from the wound. Material and methods: A total of one hundred patients (66 males and 34 females) were enrolled in the study half of which were dressed with crushed phenytoin tablet powder (Group 1) and the remaining half was dressed with normal saline (Group 2). Statistical analysis was done using using the SPSS version 22 for Windows, Inc Chicago II.Descriptive statistics was used to find the mean± standard deviation.Mann Whitney test was done to find the difference between the various variables in the two groups. Results: Phenytoin was found to help in early healing of diabetic foot ulcers with the mean epithelisation time was found to be significantly lower in the phenytoin group. Conclusion: Topical phenytoin enhances healing of diabetic foot ulcers and is a cheap and effective modality of treating these patients.

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