Effect of anesthetic technique on mortality, morbidity after hip fracture repair

Editor's Note

Spinal anesthesia was associated with lower mortality and morbidity rates after hip fracture repair than general anesthesia in this study that will be presented Saturday April 19 at the 2018 World Congress on Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine in New York City.

In this analysis of 2,591 patients, 883 in the spinal anesthesia group were matched to patients in the general anesthesia group.

The general anesthesia patients had a greater 90-day mortality (8.6% vs 6.3%) and a higher incidence of pulmonary embolism (2.3% vs 0.5%) and major blood loss (7.7% vs 4.8%). Hospital length of stay and incidence of major cardiac events were similar between the two groups.

The researchers concluded that spinal anesthesia may be preferred over general anesthesia for elderly patients having hip fracture repair.