Mortality among elderly hip fracture patients following surgical intervention- an institutional review of a tertiary care centre of North India.

BACKGROUND

We conducted a retrospective study of prospectively collected data to find the thirty-day and one-year mortality rate among geriatric patients with surgically operated hip fractures, and to evaluate the possible association with various non-modifiable and modifiable factors amongst deceased and survivors.

METHODS

All elderly patients (above 60 years) with hip fractures (trochanteric or/and femoral neck) admitted and operated between July 2018 to February 2024 and having a minimum follow-up of 4.5 months (18 weeks) if alive, were included. Patients that were managed non-operatively, age <60 years, having associated lower limb injuries or polytrauma, those not falling within the time duration mentioned above and previously operated cases of hip fractures were excluded from the study. Telephonic enquiries were done to patients or their relatives to know whether the patients were alive or had expired. The data, so collected, was used to find the mortality rate. Relevant statistical analyses were applied to look for any association between the mortality and various data-demographic, injury-related, comorbidities and hematological.

RESULTS

A total of 168 patients were included based on inclusion-exclusion criteria. Out of these, there were 136 patients having a follow-up of one year or more. 30-day mortality in our series was 4.76 % (8 out of 168) and 1-year mortality was 19.85 % (27 out of 136). Presence of "any comorbidity" and "the total number of comorbidities" at admission had a significant association with deceased individuals in comparison to non-deceased ones (p-value<0.001 in both). There was also a statistically significant negative association of the survival time (number of days) with the number of comorbidities.

CONCLUSION

Mortality rate following hip fractures in geriatric patients remains as high as one-fifth at one year. Comorbidities have a significant effect on one-year mortality and the postoperative survival duration is negatively associated with number of comorbidities.