For this study, primary care data were examined from a large national multi-ethnic cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes in New Zealand and linked hospital records. The primary outcome was time from initial data collection to first lower limb amputation. There were 892 lower limb amputations recorded among 62,002 patients (2.11 amputations per 1000 person-years), followed for a median of 7.14 years (422,357 person-years). In Cox proportional hazards analyses that adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic variables, Māori had the highest risk of lower limb amputation in comparison with Europeans (hazard ratio [HR] 1.84; 95% CI, 1.54 to 2.19), whereas East Asians (HR 0.18; 95% CI, 0.08 to 0.44) and South Asians (HR 0.39; 95% CI, 0.22 to 0.67) had the lowest risk. Adjusting for available clinical variables (smoking status, height and weight, blood pressure, HbA1c, total cholesterol/HDL ratio and albuminuria)
