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Nutritional risk linked to early death after hip fracture

Within 28 days, 14.8% of hip-fracture patients with nutritional risk died, compared with 5.2% of those with normal nutritional status.

Paper by Gautham Sreekumar, Saurav Krishnan, Tharmesh Sivananthan, Aysha Rajeev
Figure 1. Twenty-eight-day mortality rate by nutrition risk status (any risk vs. normal)
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Figure 1. Twenty-eight-day mortality rate by nutrition risk status (any risk vs. normal)Twenty-eight-day mortality rate by nutrition risk status (any risk vs. normal)Sreekumar et al.
Cohort study of 691 peoplePopulations
Paper

Researchers examined 709 consecutive patients admitted with hip fracture in a retrospective cohort study. They assessed nutritional risk on admission using the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool. They combined patients classified as at risk or malnourished into one nutritional-risk group. They excluded 18 patients whose anaesthetic risk could not be graded, leaving 691 for analysis.

Of these patients, 128 had nutritional risk. Deaths from any cause within 28 days were more common in this group than among patients with normal nutritional status. The association remained after accounting for age, sex, anaesthetic risk grade and scores on a test of mental abilities. These measured factors did not substantially explain the link.

Why it matters

Hip fractures carry a substantial risk of early death in older adults. The findings support including nutritional assessment in a broader evaluation of that risk.

Caveats

This retrospective observational study could not establish cause and effect. Unmeasured factors may still have influenced the association.

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