Excess Mortality After Pelvic Fractures Among Older People.

The study aimed to estimate excess mortality in patients aged 60 years or older up to 1 year after pelvic fracture compared with a population without pelvic fracture. In this retrospective population-based observational study, we use routine data from a large health insurance in Germany. For each patient with a first pelvic fracture between 2008 and 2010 (n = 5685 cases, 82% female, mean age 80 ± 9 years), about 34 individuals without pelvic fracture (n = 193,159 controls) were frequency matched by sex, age at index date, and index month. We estimated survival probabilities in the first year after the index date separated for cases (further stratified into inpatient/outpatient treated or minor/major pelvic fractures) and controls using Kaplan-Meier curves. Additionally, time-dependent hazard ratios (HRs) measuring excess mortality in 4-week intervals up to 52 weeks were estimated by fitting Cox regression models including adjustment for relevant confounders. Twenty-one percent of cases and 11% of controls died within 1 year. HRs (95% confidence intervals) decreased from 3.9 (3.5-4.5) within the first 4 weeks to 1.4 (1.1-1.9) within weeks 49 to 52 after the index date. After full adjustment, HRs lowered substantially (3.0 [2.6-3.4] and 1.0 [0.8-1.4]) but were still significantly increased up to week 32. Adjusted HRs in women were lower than in men: 2.8 (2.4-3.2) and 1.0 (0.7-1.4) versus 3.8 (2.9-5.0) and 1.2 (0.6-2.3). We found a clear excess mortality among older people in the first 8 months after pelvic fracture even after full adjustment. Excess mortality was higher among men in the beginning as well as for inpatient-treated persons. Absence of excess mortality was noticed for outpatient-treated persons within the first 3 months. When broken down into site-specific data, excess mortality was no longer significant for most pelvic fractures classified as minor. The only exception was fracture of pubis within the first 4 weeks. © 2017 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.

Epidemiology of Pelvic Fractures in Germany: Considerably High Incidence Rates among Older People.

Epidemiological data about pelvic fractures are limited. Until today, most studies only analyzed inpatient data. The purpose of this study was to estimate incidence rates of pelvic fractures in the German population aged 60 years or older, based on outpatient and inpatient data. We conducted a retrospective population-based observational study based on routine data from a large health insurance company in Germany. Age and sex-specific incidence rates of first fractures between 2008 and 2011 were calculated. We also standardized incidence rates with respect to age and sex in the German population. Multiple Poisson regression models were used to evaluate the association between the risk of first pelvic fracture as outcome and sex, age, calendar year and region as independent variables. The total number of patients with a first pelvic fracture corresponded to 8,041 and during the study period 5,978 insured persons needed inpatient treatment. Overall, the standardized incidence rate of all first pelvic fractures was 22.4 [95% CI 22.0-22.9] per 10,000 person-years, and the standardized incidence rate of inpatient treated fractures 16.5 [16.1-16.9]. Our adjusted regression analysis confirmed a significant sex (RR 2.38 [2.23-2.55], p < 0.001, men as reference) and age effect (higher risk with increasing age, p < 0.001) on first fracture risk. We found a slight association between calendar year (higher risk in later years compared to 2008, p = 0.0162) and first fracture risk and a further significant association with region (RR 0.92 [0.87-0.98], p = 0.006, Westfalen-Lippe as reference). The observed incidences are considerably higher than incidences described in the international literature, even if only inpatient treated pelvic fractures are regarded. Besides which, non-inclusion of outpatient data means that a relevant proportion of pelvic fractures are not taken into account. Prevention of low energy trauma among older people remains an important issue.