Intrinsic factors and major clinical interventions were all important risk factors of POP in patients after hip fracture surgery. Targeted preventive measures to mitigate the above risk factors may help in reducing the incidence of POP.

Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) has been found to be a significant prognostic factor of mortality in many cardiovascular diseases. However, a link between RDW at admission with long-term mortality in the hip fracture population has not been well established. Therefore, we sought to evaluate the long-term prognostic value of RDW in a well-defined hip fracture cohort, and to compare the effect of RDW in patients with and without anemia. A prospective cohort study was performed on 1479 hip fracture patients admitted at the General Hospital of Chinese PLA between January 2000 and October 2011 with a follow-up study over a 2-year period. A total of 1479 patients were used for the evaluation of 2-year all-cause mortality, while 804 patients with more than 4 years of follow-up were extracted for further evaluation of 4-year all-cause mortality. Cox proportional regression was used to evaluate the association between admission RDW and long-term mortality, adjusting for potential confounding variables. Higher RDW values were strongly associated with increased all-cause mortality. After adjusting for age, mean corpuscular volume, admission hemoglobin, comorbidities, and complications, RDW had a significant independent association with both 2-year mortality with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.183 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.017 to 1.376) and 4-year mortality with an HR of 1.244 (95% CI, 1.052 to 1.471). In stratified analysis, the effect of RDW was even more pronounced, with 2-year mortality HR of 1.341 (95% CI, 1.095 to 1.643) and 4-year mortality HR of 1.345 (95% CI, 1.071 to 1.688) in non-anemic patients. In non-anemic patients, elevated RDW values are significantly associated with increased odds of all-cause mortality, implying that RDW may be a possible laboratory biomarker for risk stratification in non-anemic hip fracture patients. Further studies are needed to confirm the current finding in different and larger hip fracture cohorts.

Thromboprophylaxis with rivaroxaban has proved effective and safe in patients undergoing hip and knee replacement surgery. As it is unclear whether it is also effective and safe in fracture patients, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban in patients with lower limb fractures. We performed a retrospective cohort study of 2,050 consecutive patients treated for lower limb fractures at our trauma center, comparing rates of venous thromboembolism (VTE), bleeding and surgical complications, and the length of hospital stay for 608 patients who received rivaroxaban and 717 who received a low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH). Rates of symptomatic VTE were 4.9 and 8.6% in the rivaroxaban and LMWH groups, respectively (p = 0.008), and distal VTE rates were 1.8 and 5.7%, respectively (p = 0.036). The incidence of major bleeding events in the rivaroxaban group was also lower than in the LMWH group (0.2 vs 0.6%), but the difference between the groups was not statistically significant. The mean length of hospital stay was significantly shorter in the rivaroxaban group (12.2 vs 13.1 days, respectively; p = 0.016). This retrospective cohort study is the first report documenting the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban in patients with lower extremity fractures. In comparison with LMWH, rivaroxaban reduced the incidence of VTE by 45% without increasing the risk of bleeding. However, prospective, randomized controlled trials comparing rivaroxaban and LMWH are needed to confirm our findings.

Anemia is a disputable factor for long-term mortality in hip fracture population in previous studies. Previous studies indicated that the level of hemoglobin (Hb) might fluctuate due to various factors, such as comorbidities and in-hospital interventions, and the changing level of Hb, may lead to discordance diagnosis of anemia and thus to the conflicting conclusions on prognostic value of anemia. So in this study, we aim to compare factors affecting the diagnosis of anemia at different time-points, admission, postoperation, and discharge, and to determine which the time point is most suitable for mortality prediction.This prospective cohort study included 1330 hip fracture patients from 1 January 2000 to 18 November 2012. Hb levels at 3 different time points, such as admission, postoperation, and discharge, were collected and used to stratify the cohort into anemia and nonanemia groups. Candidate factors including commodities, perioperative factors, blood transfusion, and other in-hospital interventions were collected before discharge. Logistic regression analyses were performed to detect risk factors for anemia for the 3 time points separately. Kaplan–Meier and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the association between anemia and 2-year mortality.Factors affecting the diagnosis of anemia were different for the 3 time points. Age, female sex, American Society of Anesthesiologists score (ASA), and intertrochanteric fracture were associated with admission anemia, while surgical procedure, surgical duration, blood transfusion, blood loss during the operation, and drainage volume were major risk factors for postoperation anemia. Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis suggested that the risk of all-cause mortality was higher in the anemia group on admission (1.680, 95%CI: 1.201–2.350, P < 0.01), but not postoperation or on discharge, after adjustment for confounding factors.Our study showed that risk factors for anemia varied at different time points, and therapy interventions would greatly affect the status of postoperation and discharge anemia in hip fracture patients. The take-home message is when anemia is used for mortality prediction in these patients, a specific time point should be chosen. We suggest that only admission anemia should be used for mortality prediction, but not postoperation nor discharge anemia.