Accelerated care for patients with hip fractures may improve outcomes

Decreasing the time to surgery may improve outcomes for patients with hip fractures, according to results of a randomized controlled pilot trial.

“We believe that the shortest time possible to treatment may provide the greatest potential for benefit, as is the case in acute heart attack and stroke,” P.J. Devereaux, MD, PhD, stated in a press release.

In the trial, the researchers enrolled 60 patients at two tertiary care hospitals in Canada and one tertiary care hospital in India to randomly receive standard care or accelerated care after a hip fracture. Mean patient age was 81 years and 63% of the patients were female. The time between diagnosis to surgery was 6 hours in the accelerated care group compared to 24.2 hours in the standard care group, according to the abstract.

P.J. Devereaux

The researchers found that 30% of patients in the accelerated care group had complications after 30-day follow-up compared with 47% of patients in the standard care group.

Devereaux completed this pilot study with Orthopedics Today Editorial Board member Mohit Bhandari, MD, PhD, FRCSC, and colleagues. The researchers plan to conduct a full-scale trial in 2014. The results of the pilot trial were published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“This pilot provides encouraging evidence that accelerated surgery may substantially improve outcomes in these patients,” Bhandari stated in a press release.

Reference:

Buse GL. Can Med Assoc J. 2013;doi:10.1503/cmaj.130901.

Disclosure: Bhandari is a paid consultant for Smith & Nephew, Stryker, Amgen, Zimmer, Moximed, Bioventus, DePuy and Eli Lilly. Crowther received financial support from Octapharma and CSL Behring. Eikelboom received grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Pfizer, Bayer and Daiichi Sankyo. Devereaux received grants from Abbot Diagnostics, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Coviden, Stryker and Roche Diagnostics.