title: General versus regional anaesthesia for hip fractures. A pilot randomised controlled trial of 322 patients.
abstract: Uncertainty remains regarding the optimum method of anaesthesia for hip fracture surgery. We randomised 322 patients with a hip fracture to receive either general anaesthesia or regional (spinal) anaesthesia. Surviving patients were followed up to 1 year from injury. There was no notable difference in the outcomes of hospital stay, need for blood transfusion or post-operative complications between groups. 30-day mortality was marginally reduced for spinal anaesthesia 7/164(4.3%) versus 5/158(3.2%) (p=0.57), whilst at 1 year it was less for general anaesthesia 20/163(12.1%) versus 32/158(20.2%) (p=0.05). Within the confines of the limited patient numbers studied we conclude that there are no marked differences in outcome between the two techniques.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedics, Peterborough and Stamford Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Peterborough City Hospital, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Martyn.Parker@pbh-tr.nhs.uk.
authors.forename: Martyn J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Peterborough and Stamford Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Peterborough City Hospital, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Richard.Griffiths@pbh-tr.nhs.uk.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Griffiths
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000765:Anesthesia, Conduction / Q000401:mortality; D000768:Anesthesia, General / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D006620:Hip Fractures / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Anaesthesia; Hip fracture; Randomised trial