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A lot of work going on in this area (in amputation prevention) is really, really exciting. We are now developing better and better tests to assess risk, to predict a potential bad outcome. We can now boil down an entire clinical examination into between 1-3 minutes – we have developed something called the 3 minute foot exam. We’ve also developed other testing – like there are certain types of genetic tests that may prove promising in identifying people at risk for getting things like neuropathy, for getting things like other types of arthritis that can put them at risk for getting a dangerous deformity that commonly shows up in diabetes and diabetic foot called Charcot Arthropathy or other complications like this. These are just the latest sorts of things. Still even more exciting are: if you have a wound, there are now brand new ways to test the wound that may be able to assess all kinds of bacteria that are growing in their – in the wound. We’re kind of moving away from Louie Pasteur and moving more toward CSI, if you will. Some of those tests are becoming more and more standard. How valuable are those? We’ll see. They may amount to nothing or they may amount to something pretty special and I tend to think it’s probably gonna be somewhere in between. I (for one) am pretty excited about some of those tests.
