General versus regional anaesthesia for hip fracture surgery – impact on mortality and length of stay

Background
Hip fractures are extremely common and are considered a public health problem. The best anaesthetic technique for this surgery remains controversial. The aim of this study is to determine the impact of anaesthesia on perioperative and 30-day mortality and length of stay, in patients undergoing hip fracture surgery.

Material
Adults undergoing hip fracture surgery, between January 1st, 2017 and December 31st, 2018, were retrospectively identified and categorized according to the anaesthetic technique. Perioperative and 30-day mortality rates and the length of stay were analysed.

Results
We identified 562 patients who underwent hip fracture surgery, 361 of whom were submitted to general anaesthesia and 201 to regional anaesthesia. The adjusted analysis showed no statistically significant difference in the risk of perioperative and 30-day mortality (odds ratio 1.12, 95% CI: 0.62–2.03; odds ratio 1.17, 95% CI: 0.72–1.92) or length of stay (0, 9 days [–1.6 to 3.4], P = 0.301).

Conclusions
Our results were similar to those of studies already published in other countries. Within the limitations of our study, we concluded that there is no impact of the anaesthetic technique on perioperative and 30-day mortality rates and on the length of stay, for hip fracture surgery. In future studies, it will be opportune to investigate factors that influence the safety of anaesthetic techniques and that are subject to intervention by the anaesthesiologist.