Surgical intervention may provides better outcomes for hip fracture in nonagenarian patients: A retrospective observational study

Background: Hip fracture is a common disease in the elderly. Among these patients, surgical intervention for hip fracture should be carefully considered because of old age and multiple comorbidities. There are still insufficient comparisons between nonagenarian patients treated with surgery and those treated non-surgically. We studied hip fracture nonagenarian patients to compare the different outcomes between surgical and non-surgical treatments. Materials and methods: Nonagenarian patients visiting the emergency department with hip fractures between March 2010 and December 2020 were identified. Overall survival was estimated using multivariate Cox proportional hazards models. The mortality rates, the length of hospital stay, complication and readmission rates were also recorded. Results: A total of 173 patients who underwent surgery and 32 who received conservative treatments were included. The median survival time was 58.47 months in the OP group, which was significantly higher than the 24.28 months in the non-OP group. After adjusting for covariates, including age, sex, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), injury severity score, and fracture type, the risk of death was reduced by surgery (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.427; 95 % confidence interval [CI]: 0.207–0.882; p = 0.021). CCI was also an independent risk factor for poor survival rate (HR = 1.3; 95 % CI: 1.115–1.515; p = 0.001). After adjusting for several factors, surgery within 48 h improved overall survival (HR: 2.518; 95 % CI: 1.299–4.879; p = 0.006) in operative group. Conclusion: Our study suggests that surgical treatment may provide better survival for nonagenarian patients with hip fractures than non-operation, especially patients with less concurrent comorbidities.