Comparison of the effects of general and regional anesthesia on mortality and hospital length of stay in geriatric hip fractures

A. Basdemirci, O. Pekince, R. Kaplevatsky, Y. Tire

Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Dr. Ali Kemal Belviranlı Maternity and Children’s Hospital, Konya, Turkey. dryasintire@hotmail.com

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• Geriatrics
• Orthopedics

OBJECTIVE: In this study, we sought to compare the effects of general and regional anesthesia techniques on the length of hospital stay and morbidity-mortality in geriatric patients who have had hip fractures and underwent surgical treatment.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 331 patients who were 65 or older and had had surgical treatment for elective or urgent hip fractures were classified into two groups; regional and general anesthesia. Recorded variables were: age, sex, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score, comorbid disease, length of stay at the clinic, mortality, morbidity, intraoperative loss of blood, the necessity of blood transfusion, and type of fracture. These variables were compared in the control groups and evaluated retrospectively.

RESULTS: For the regional anesthesia group, length of stay in the clinic, loss of blood, and necessity of blood transfusion were significantly lower compared to the general anesthesia group (p<0.05). Additionally, we found general anesthesia mortality and morbidity rates were significantly higher than regional anesthesia (p<0.05). Finally, we determined that increased age and number of comorbid diseases increased the morbidity and mortality rates significantly (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: This study evaluated regional anesthesia’s advantages over general anesthesia when treating geriatric hip fractures. This includes reduced morbidity-mortality rates, bleeding, and shorter length of hospital stay.

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