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Regional anesthesia use in hip repair associated with shorter hospital stay
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Use of regional anesthesia was associated with a modestly shorter length of stay when compared with use of general anesthesia, according to study results.
Researchers performed a retrospective cohort study, in which 56,729 patients who underwent surgery for hip fracture at general acute care hospitals in New York State between July 2004 and December 2011 were matched with patients who lived at different distances from hospitals that specialized in regional or general anesthesia.
The researchers also performed supplementary analyses that included a within-hospital match pairing patients within the same hospital and an across-hospital match that paired patients at different hospitals. Main outcome measures included 30-day mortality and hospital length of stay.
Twenty-eight percent of patients received regional anesthesia and 72% received general anesthesia. According to the “near-far” matched analysis, among 21,514 patients, no significant difference was found in 30-day mortality by anesthesia type. Mortality rates were 5.4% among patients located near a regional anesthesia-specialized hospital vs. 5.8% in patients who lived near a general anesthesia-specialized hospital. Additionally, use of regional anesthesia was associated with a 0.6-day shorter length of stay than use of general anesthesia
The supplementary analyses of within- and across-hospital patient matches produced similar mortality findings to the main analysis, according to the researchers. Regional anesthesia was also associated with a shorter length of stay in the supplementary analyses; however, the observed association was much smaller.
Disclosure: The authors have no relevant financial disclosures.
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