Mortality associated with delay in operation after hip fracture: ... but Italian data seem to contradict study findings

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7549.1093-a

BMJ 2006;332:1093 (6 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7549.1093-a

Letter

Mortality associated with delay in operation after hip fracture

... but Italian data seem to contradict study findings

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—In contrast to Bottle and Aylin,¹ we found thatdelayed surgery alone seems not to increase mortality afterhip fracture after adjustment for comorbidity, age and sex,and taking hospital level variability into account.

We examined data from regional hospital discharge registersin Friuli Venezia Giulia, a region in northeastern Italy (population1 200 000), where each year more than 2200 elderly people areadmitted for hip fracture. We selected all patients aged 65and older with a main diagnosis of hip fracture that was surgicallytreated during 1996-2005, excluding patients with malignantneoplasm. In cases of multiple hip fracture we included onlythe first episode.

We considered all diagnoses coded in the hospital dischargerecords and in those of the previous year, calculating the Charlsoncomorbidity index for each patient² and dichotomising it suchthat 1 indicated presence of comorbidity and 0 absence. We dichotomisedthe waiting . . . [Full text of this article]

Antonella Franzo, epidemiologist

antonella.franzo@sanita.fvg.it, Agenzia Regionale della Sanità, piazzale Santa Maria della Misericordia 15, 33100 Udine, Italy

Giorgio Simon, epidemiologist, Carlo Francescutti, epidemiologist

Agenzia Regionale della Sanità, piazzale Santa Maria della Misericordia 15, 33100 Udine, Italy

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Mortality associated with delay in operation after hip fracture: observational study: Alex Bottle and Paul Aylin
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