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Increased vitamin D intake may improve function in patients with hip fractures
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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Researchers discovered that a number elderly patients who sustained hip fractures were inconsistently taking vitamin D. An increased intake of vitamin D in these patients may be associated with improved physical function, according to findings from the FAITH trial presented here.
“Prescribing vitamin D supplementation to orthopedic patients tends to be based on two rationales: either to improve their bone health to reduce those secondary osteoporotic fractures; or try and increase serum vitamin D levels to potentially improve fracture healing, muscle strength and other reported benefits,” Gerard P. Slobogean, MD, said at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association Annual Meeting.
The Fixation using Alternative Implants for the Treatment of Hip Fractures (FAITH) trial was a multicenter, randomized controlled trial that included 1,111 patients who sustained femoral neck fractures. Patients were treated with either cancellous screws or sliding hip screws.
In a subset of 625 patients from the FAITH trial, Slobogean and his colleagues questioned patients on their vitamin D intake at each follow-up visit during a 2-year time period. Patients’ vitamin D intake was categorized by consistent (three to four visits), inconsistent (one to two visits) or noncompliant based on patients’ frequency of vitamin D supplementation within the first 6 months of follow-up.
Researchers used a multivariate regression to compare the effect of vitamin D supplementation on physical function. Physical function was defined as the physical component score of the SF-12 at 1-year post-fracture and reoperation, adjusting for baseline SF-12 score, gender and fracture displacement, according to Slobogean.
In total, there were 575 patients included in the final analysis. Mean age of the patients was 74.5 years. Overall, 65.8% of patients were female and 72.6% of patients had displaced fractures.
Overall, 18.7% of patients reported no vitamin intake; 35.6% of patients reported taking vitamin D inconsistently; and 45.7% of patients reported taking vitamin D consistently.
Furthermore, there was a 2.42 increase in physical function in the physical component of the SF-12 score at 1 year in patients who had consistent vitamin D supplementation. No association was found between vitamin D supplementation and reoperation rates.
“There are limitations to this study. The vitamin D supplementation frequency was self-reported and on top of that, the dose and route of vitamin D supplementation was not collected, and our group is certainly looking into this. We think that dose frequency and duration may matter, and we do not have that information for this retrospective study,” Slobogean said. – by Nhu Te
Reference:
Slobogean G. Paper #77. Presented at: Orthopaedic Trauma Association Annual Meeting; Oct. 5-8, 2016; National Harbor, Md.
Disclosure: Slobogean reports he receives research support from CORAL Collaborators and is a board member and is on the program committee for the Orthopaedic Trauma Association.