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Research Highlights
VA Hip Fracture Repair Study to be Published in Archives of Internal Medicine
Taken from the Veterans Health Administration Highlights dated October 25, 2002
VA researchers systematically mapped incidence, severity, length of stay and mortality of a broad spectrum of medical complications after hip fracture repair in 8.930 patients. Their findings will be published in an upcoming (still undetermined) issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The author of the study is Valerie A. Lawrence, M.D., of VA’s South Texas Veterans Health Care System, Audie L. Murphy Division, in San Antonio.
The researchers performed a retrospective cohort study of consecutive hip fracture patients undergoing surgical repair at 20 study hospitals (including two VA hospitals). Their findings show serious cardiac and pulmonary complications were equally important in terms of frequency, mortality and length of stay for survivors; most patients (81%) had no medical complications after hip fracture repair; and patients with multiple complications had especially poor prognosis.
Hip fractures are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in elders. Thus, internists are frequently asked to help with preoperative risk assessment and perioperative medical management. Most evidence guiding internists in perioperative risk management of patients undergoing hip fracture repair focuses on cardiac and thromboembolic risk. The study is important, in that little is known of the relative clinical importance of pulmonary and other complications.
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