# The Preoperative Waiting Time on Long-Term Survival Following Elderly Hip Fracture Surgery

## TL;DR

This study finds that the time between admission and surgery affects elderly hip fracture patients' survival, with optimal timing depending on whether they take anticoagulant medications.

## Contribution

The study identifies optimal preoperative wait times for elderly hip fracture patients based on anticoagulation status to minimize mortality.

## Key findings

- Non-anticoagulated patients had lowest mortality when operated on within 6–15 hours of admission.
- Anticoagulated patients showed uniform mortality risk across the first 24 hours of admission.
- A U-shaped mortality trend was observed in anticoagulated patients, though breakpoints were not statistically significant.

## Abstract

Background/Objective: The first-year postoperative mortality in elderly hip fracture patients is between 15 and 36%. Current scientific evidence indicates that morbidity and mortality are impacted by time of admission to surgery in hip fracture patients, although anticoagulation (AC) medication status specific optimization is unknown. Our objectives were to identify an ideal preoperative wait time by anticoagulation status in patients before hip fracture repair based on the incidence of postoperative morbidity and mortality. Methods: A total of 35,463 patients age ≥ 65 undergoing hip fracture repair were selected from a United States hip fracture registry (2009–2019). Patients were separated into strata (yes/no) based on whether they received anticoagulation (AC) medications ≤ 100 days prior to surgery. Multivariable logistic regression was adjusted for non-linear surgical wait time trends with prespecified percentiles using cubic splines. Results: A total of 87.1% (N = 30,902) of patients did not have AC preoperatively. Their median wait time was 20.3 h (IQR 13–27 h), and a positive linear trend was observed between surgical wait time and mortality. In patients with pre-operative AC, there was a “U”-shaped trend for all mortality time points although the breakpoint slopes were not significantly different from zero. Conclusions: In the study of more than 30,000 patients, short-term mortality was lowest for non-AC patients, undergoing surgery within the first 6–15 h of admission but remained uniform throughout the first 24 h of admission. These findings can be used to optimize patients prior to hip fracture surgery based on preoperative AC use and can positively affect resource planning and perioperative protocols.