Prior fracture and refracture among patients admitted with hip fracture: Data from a regional hip fracture registry in Sri Lanka.

AIM

Fragility hip fracture has become a major global health concern. Data related to recurrent fragility fractures are sparse in the South Asian region.

METHOD

We assessed the prevalence of prior fragility fracture among patients admitted with new hip fracture to a tertiary care hospital in southern Sri Lanka. Also the incidence of refracture was assessed among hip fracture survivors followed up for 24 months after discharge.

RESULTS

Three hundred and nine patients with incident hip fracture were admitted during the study period (June 2014-February 2015) and 11 patients died while in the ward. We detected previous fracture in the contralateral hip in eight patients, while two others had distal radius fracture and one patient clinical vertebral fracture (rate = 3.6%). During the follow up two patients developed fractures in the contralateral hip while either clinical vertebral or distal forearm fractures were not detected (refracture rate = 0.004/person years).

CONCLUSION

This analysis based on a regional hip fracture registry shows a low prevalence of prior fracture among patients admitted with incident hip fracture and a low rate of refracture among survivors. More studies are needed to assess whether there are geographical variations in the prevalence of prior fracture or refracture among patients with incident hip fracture.