Hip fracture often deadly for older folks

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Mortality after hip fracture is increasing among elderly people, results of a study from Denmark indicate. The study also shows an increase in the number of men sustaining hip fractures.

Dr. Peter Vestergaard and colleagues from Aarhus University Hospital evaluated changes in mortality and causes of death in all 163,313 people nationwide who sustained a hip fracture people between 1981 and 2001 and in 505,960 age- and sex-matched controls who did not fracture a hip.

Over the study period, they observed a decrease in 1-year survival among those who fractured a hip, but an increase in survival among the controls.

Writing in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the researchers say this decrease in survival after a hip fracture is "particularly troubling, because overall life expectancy has improved in the general population."

Mortality was significantly higher among hip fracture patients who had hip replacement surgery (arthroplasty) than among those who had osteosynthesis -- a surgical procedure that stabilizes and joins the ends of broken bones using metal plates, pins, rods, wires, or screws.

Accidents related to the fractured hip were the major cause of both 30-day and 1-year mortality.

The proportion of men with hip fractures rose significantly from 25.5 percent to 29.8 percent during the study period, as did the average age of patients with hip fracture -- from 75.8 to 78.1 years.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, November 2007.