Prediction of Early Postoperative Major Cardiac Events and In-Hospital Mortality in Elderly Hip Fracture Patients: The Role of Different Types of Preoperative Cardiac Abnormalities on Echocardiography Report

Preoperative transthoracic echocardiography does not lead to decreased postoperative mortality but with increased time to surgery and length of stay in Chinese geriatric hip fracture patients

PURPOSE

The present study aimed to investigate the influence of preoperative TTE on postoperative short-term mortality, surgery delay, as well as other economic and clinical outcomes in Chinese geriatric hip fracture patients.

METHODS

This retrospective, matched-cohort study enrolled geriatric hip fracture patients (≥ 60 years) who underwent surgical interventions at our center between 2015 and 2020. The primary exposure was inpatient preoperative TTE. Demographic and clinical data that were reported as risk factors for postoperative mortality were retrieved from the medical data center as the covariates. The primary clinical outcomes were all-cause mortality at 30 days, 90 days, 180 days, and 1 year. Time from hospital presentation to surgery, length of stay (LOS), inpatient cost, frequency of cardiology consultation and coronary angiography (CAG) were also assessed. The propensity score matching (PSM) was performed in a ratio of 1:1.

RESULTS

447 patients were identified and 216 of them received a preoperative TTE (48.3%). After successfully matching 390 patients (87.2%), patients receiving TTE showed significantly higher 30-day mortality (6.6% vs 2.0%, P = 0.044). But no significant difference was found in 90-day, 180-day, and 365-day mortality as well as the 1-year accumulated survival rate. Receipt of TTE was also associated with significant increases in LOS (13.6 days vs 11.4 days, P = 0.017), waiting time for surgery (5.9 days vs 4.3 days, P < 0.001), and lower proportion of receiving surgery within 48 h (7.2% vs. 26.2%, P < 0.001). According to the multivariable logistic analysis, only ejection fraction (30 days, 90 days), aorta diameter (30 days, 90 days, 180 days, 365 days), left ventricular posterior wall diameter (90 days, 180 days, 365 days), aortic valve velocity (90 days) and mitral valve A-peak (90 days, 180 days) were association with postoperative mortality among the 17 parameters in the TTE reports. Besides, TTE has no influence on the frequency of preoperative cardiology consultation.

CONCLUSION

Preoperative TTE does not lead to decreased postoperative mortality but with increased time to surgery and length of stay in Chinese geriatric hip fracture patients. The predictive ability of TTE parameters is limited for postoperative mortality.

Aortic Stenosis Management in Patients With Acute Hip Fracture

The treatment of severe aortic stenosis (SAS) has evolved rapidly with the advent of minimally invasive structural heart interventions. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement has allowed patients to undergo definitive SAS treatment achieving faster recovery rates compared to valve surgery. Not infrequently, patients are admitted/diagnosed with SAS after a fall associated with a hip fracture (HFx). While urgent orthopedic surgery is key to reduce disability and mortality, untreated SAS increases the perioperative risk and precludes physical recovery. There is no consensus on what the best strategy is either hip correction under hemodynamic monitoring followed by valve replacement or preoperative balloon aortic valvuloplasty to allow HFx surgery followed by valve replacement. However, preoperative minimalist transcatheter aortic valve replacement may represent an attractive strategy for selected patients. We provide a management pathway that emphasizes an early multidisciplinary approach to optimize time for hip surgery to improve orthopedic and cardiovascular outcomes in patients presenting with HFx-SAS.

Development and Internal Validation of a Nomogram for Predicting Postoperative Cardiac Events in Elderly Hip Fracture Patients

Purpose

Postoperative cardiac events (PCEs) are among the main adverse events after hip fracture surgery in the elderly. Existing cardiac risk assessment tools have some limitations and are not specifically designed for elderly patients undergoing hip fracture surgery. This study aimed to develop and internally validate a nomogram for prediction of PCEs in these patients.

Patients and Methods

We performed a retrospective study of 992 patients aged ≥65 years undergoing hip fracture surgery in our hospital from July 2015 to December 2021. Patients' demographics and clinical data were collected. Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression was used to select predictors, and multivariate logistic regression was employed to construct a nomogram. Internal validation was performed by bootstrapping. The discriminatory ability of the model was determined by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The calibration and clinical utility of the model were assessed. The predictive power and clinical benefit of the nomogram were compared with the Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI).

Results

The nomogram was constructed including seven variables: general anesthesia, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification, history of heart failure, history of severe arrhythmia, history of coronary artery disease, preoperative platelet count, and serum creatinine. The nomogram had an excellent predictive ability (AUC = 0.875, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.828-0.918). Satisfactory calibration was shown by calibration plots and the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test (P = 0.520). Clinical usefulness was confirmed by decision curve analysis and clinical impact curve. The predictive power and clinical utility of the nomogram were superior to RCRI.

Conclusion

We developed an easy-to-use nomogram for prediction of PCEs in elderly hip fracture patients. This prediction model could effectively identify patients at high risk of PCEs and may be useful for perioperative management optimization.

Increasing serum miR-409-3p predicts the major adverse cardiac adverse events in elderly patients after hip fracture surgery

BACKGROUND

Major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) are critical complications responsible for the morbidity and mortality of elderly hip fracture patients. There was an urgent need to explore an effect biomarker for predicting MACE in elderly patients receiving hip fracture surgery.

OBJECTIVE

This study focused on an age-related miRNA, miR-409-3p, and assessed its significance in elderly hip fracture patients.

METHODS

A total of 267 hip fracture patients were enrolled in this study including 104 elderly patients (age ≥ 60 years). All patients were followed up for 1 year to monitor the occurrence of MACE. The risk factors for the occurrence of MACE were evaluated by the logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

Elderly age and reduced cardiac and renal function were identified as risk factors for MACE in hip fracture patients. Elderly patients also showed a high incidence of MACE. In elderly hip fracture patients, significant upregulation of miR-409-3p was observed, which was associated with patients' elderly age, higher level of revised cardiac risk index (RCRI), lower left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), and higher levels of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), and high sensitivity troponin I (hsTnI). Additionally, miR-409-3p was identified as an independent factor for the MACE in elderly patients received hip fracture surgery.

CONCLUSION

Upregulated miR-409-3p was an age-related miRNA and could predict the occurrence of MACE in elderly hip fracture patients.

Analysis of Cardiac Events and the Subsequent Impact for Geriatric Patients Undergoing Hip Fracture Surgeries

Perioperative complications, particularly cardiac events, compromised surgical outcomes for geriatric patients. This retrospective study intended to investigate the occurrence and subsequent impact of cardiac events for geriatric patients undergoing hip fracture surgeries. We collected 607 patients undergoing hip fracture surgeries from January 2017 to December 2022 that received transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) pre-operatively to screen for cardiac abnormalities. Except for demographic characteristics, the researchers recorded fracture type, surgical method, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class, anesthesia type, perioperative cardiac events, and in-hospital mortality. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 22.0 statistics software. Throughout the whole course of the study, 16 postoperative cardiac events occurred. The cardiac events included ten arrhythmias, three acute myocardial infarctions, two heart failures, and one sudden death. Notably, 12 of 16 patients with cardiac events presented with abnormal findings on TTE, except 15 of them had a history of cardiac disease. This study disclosed 93.7% of cardiac events developed in patients with a history of cardiovascular disease. Among patients that experienced cardiac events, 75% of patients had abnormal echocardiographic findings. Pre-operative transthoracic echocardiography deserves a recommendation for geriatric patients with histories of cardiac diseases undergoing hip fracture surgeries to detect the risk of developing cardiac events earlier.

Two surgical pathways for isolated hip fractures: A comparative study

BACKGROUND

Hip fractures (HF) are common among the aging population, and surgery within 48 h is recommended. Patients can be hospitalized for surgery through different pathways, either trauma or medicine admitting services.

AIM

To compare management and outcomes among patients admitted through the trauma pathway (TP) vs medical pathway (MP).

METHODS

This Institutional Review Board-approved retrospective study included 2094 patients with proximal femur fractures (AO/Orthopedic Trauma Association Type 31) who underwent surgery at a level 1 trauma center between 2016-2021. There were 69 patients admitted through the TP and 2025 admitted through the MP. To ensure comparability between groups, 66 of the 2025 MP patients were propensity matched to 66 TP patients by age, sex, HF type, HF surgery, and American Society of Anesthesiology score. The statistical analyses included multivariable analysis, group characteristics, and bivariate correlation comparisons with the χ² test and t-test.

RESULTS

After propensity matching, the mean age in both groups was 75-years-old, 62% of both groups were females, the main HF type was intertrochanteric (TP 52% vs MP 62%), open reduction internal fixation was the most common surgery (TP 68% vs MP 71%), and the mean American Society of Anesthesiology score was 2.8 for TP and 2.7 for MP. The majority of patients in TP and MP (71% vs 74%) were geriatric (≥ 65-years-old). Falls were the main mechanism of injury in both groups (77% vs 97%, P = 0.001). There were no significant differences in pre-surgery anticoagulation use (49% vs 41%), admission day of the week, or insurance status. The incidence of comorbidities was equal (94% for both) with cardiac comorbidities being dominant in both groups (71% vs 73%). The number of preoperative consultations was similar for TP and MP, with the most common consultation being cardiology in both (44% and 36%). HF displacement occurred more among TP patients (76% vs 39%, P = 0.000). Time to surgery was not statistically different (23 h in both), but length of surgery was significantly longer for TP (59 min vs 41 min, P = 0.000). Intensive care unit and hospital length of stay were not statistically different (5 d vs 8 d and 6 d for both). There were no statistical differences in discharge disposition and mortality (3% vs 0%).

CONCLUSION

There were no differences in outcomes of surgeries between admission through TP vs MP. The focus should be on the patient’s health condition and on prompt surgical intervention.

Risk Factors for Early Mortality in Older Patients with Traumatic Cervical Spine Injuries-A Multicenter Retrospective Study of 1512 Cases

For older patients with decreased reserve function, traumatic cervical spine injuries frequently lead to early mortality. However, the prognostic factors for early mortality remain unclear. This study included patients aged ≥65 years and hospitalized for treatment of traumatic cervical spine injuries in 78 hospitals between 2010 and 2020. Early mortality was defined as death within 90 days after injury. We evaluated the relationship between early mortality and the following factors: age, sex, body mass index, history of drinking and smoking, injury mechanisms, presence of a cervical spine fracture and dislocation, cervical ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament, diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale, concomitant injury, pre-existing comorbidities, steroid administration, and treatment plan. Overall, 1512 patients (mean age, 75.8 ± 6.9 years) were included in the study. The early mortality rate was 4.0%. Multivariate analysis identified older age (OR = 1.1, p < 0.001), male sex (OR = 3.7, p = 0.009), cervical spine fracture (OR = 4.2, p < 0.001), complete motor paralysis (OR = 8.4, p < 0.001), and chronic kidney disease (OR = 5.3, p < 0.001) as risk factors for early mortality. Older age, male sex, cervical spine fracture, complete motor paralysis, and chronic kidney disease are prognostic factors for early mortality in older patients with traumatic cervical spine injuries.

Hip Fracture Surgery in Severe Aortic Stenosis: A Study of Factors Affecting Mortality

Background

Purpose

Patients and Methods

Results

Conclusion

Associations between different measures of intra-operative tachycardia during noncardiac surgery and adverse postoperative outcomes: A retrospective cohort analysis

BACKGROUND

Intra-operative tachycardia during noncardiac surgery has been associated with adverse postoperative outcomes. However, harm thresholds for tachycardia have not been uniformly defined. The definition of intra-operative tachycardia that best correlates with adverse postoperative outcomes remains unclear.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to identify the definition of intra-operative tachycardia during noncardiac surgery that is associated with the best predictive ability for adverse postoperative outcomes.

DESIGN

A single-centre retrospective cohort analysis.

SETTING

Secondary care hospital, Afula, Israel.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Adults who underwent elective or nonelective noncardiac surgery during 2015 to 2019. Five intra-operative heart rate (HR) cut-off values and durations were applied with penalised logistic regression modelling for the outcome measures.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The primary outcome was all-cause 30-day mortality; the secondary outcome was myocardial ischaemia or infarction (MI) within 30 days after noncardiac surgery.

RESULTS

The derivation and validation datasets included 6490 and 4553 patients, respectively. Altogether, all-cause 30-day mortality and MI rates averaged 2.1% and 3.2%, respectively. Only two definitions of intra-operative tachycardia were significantly associated with the outcome measures: HR ≥ 100 bpm for ≥ 30 min and HR ≥ 120 bpm for ≥ 5 min. The C-statistics of the base models without tachycardia exposure for all-cause 30-day mortality and MI were 0.75 (95% confidence interval, CI, 0.74 to 0.78) and 0.73 (95% CI, 0.72 to 0.76), respectively. The addition of intra-operative tachycardia exposure to the base models significantly improved their predictive performance. The highest area under the curve (AUC) was achieved when tachycardia was defined as an intra-operative HR ≥ 100 bpm for at least 30 min: AUC 0.81 (95% CI, 0.80 to 0.84) and AUC 0.80 (95% CI, 0.79 to 0.82) for all-cause 30-day mortality and MI, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Intra-operative tachycardia, defined as an intra-operative HR ≥ 100 bpm for at least 30 min, was associated with the highest predictive power for adverse postoperative outcomes.

Increased Mortality in Hip Fracture Patients With Aortic Stenosis and Pulmonary Hypertension Compared to Aortic Stenosis Alone

INTRODUCTION

Hip fractures are one of the most common traumatic injuries in the United States, secondary to an aging population. Multiple comorbidities are found in patients who present to trauma centers (TCs) with isolated hip fractures (IHFs) including significant cardiac disease. Aortic stenosis (AS) among these patients has been recently shown to increase mortality. However, factors leading to death from AS are unknown. We hypothesize that pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a significant mechanism of death among IHF patients with AS.

METHODS

This is a multicenter retrospective cohort study examining IHF patients treated at Level I and II TCs within a large hospital system from 2015 to 2019. Patients who had IHFs and AS were compared to those who had IHFs, AS, and PH. Multivariable logistic regression was used to risk adjust by age, race, insurance status, and comorbidities. The primary outcome was inpatient mortality. The secondary outcomes were hospital-acquired complications.

RESULTS

A total of 1388 IHF patients with AS were included in the study. Eleven percent of these patients also had PH. The crude mortality rate was higher if IHF patients had both AS and PH compared to IHF with AS alone (9% vs 3.7%, P-value .003). After risk adjustment, a higher risk of mortality was still significant (aOR 2.56 [95% CI 1.28, 5.11]). In addition, IHF patients with both AS and PH had higher complication rates; the exposure group had higher percentage of pulmonary embolism (1.4% vs .2%, adjusted P-value .03), new-onset congestive heart failure (4.1% vs 1%, adjusted P-value .01), and sepsis/septicemia (3.5% vs 1.4%, adjusted P-value .05).

CONCLUSION

In patients with IHFs, PH and AS increase the likelihood of inpatient mortality by 2.5 times compared to AS alone. Pulmonary hypertension among IHF patients with AS is an important risk factor to identify in the preoperative period. Early identification may lead to better perioperative management and counseling of patients at higher risk of complications.

Admission Resting Heart Rate as an Independent Predictor of All-Cause Mortality in Elderly Patients with Hip Fracture

Purpose

To investigate the relationship between admission resting heart rate (RHR) and all-cause mortality in elderly patients with hip fracture.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study with 837 patients based on the established hip fracture database was conducted. Admission RHR was measured via electrocardiogram, and patients were grouped by the median RHR value (beats per minute, bpm). The main outcomes were 1-year and total all-cause mortality. Cox proportional hazard models and restricted cubic spline were used to assess the relationship between RHR and mortality. Sensitivity analyses were further performed to determine whether the results were stable.

Results

The mean and median RHR were 82.3 and 80.0 bpm, respectively. After a median follow-up of 31.8 months, the 1-year and total all-cause mortality were 17.6% and 31.2%. Multivariable Cox analyses showed that high RHR was an independent risk factor for 1-year mortality (HR = 1.51; 95% CI: 1.08–2.13; p = 0.016), and total mortality (HR = 1.44; 95% CI: 1.12–1.85; p = 0.005). For each 10 bpm increase in RHR, the risk of 1-year death increased by 23.0% (HR = 1.23; 95% CI: 1.09–1.39; p = 0.001), and total death increased by 21.0% (HR = 1.21; 95% CI: 1.09–1.34; p < 0.001). A typical J-shaped curve was observed in the restricted cubic spline for the association between RHR and 1-year mortality, with the lowest mortality risk at 70 bpm. Sensitivity analyses yielded similar findings.

Conclusion

An increase in RHR was independently associated with all-cause mortality, and may be a useful prognostic predictor for elderly patients with hip fracture.

An Approach to Standard Perioperative Transthoracic Echocardiography Practice for Anesthesiologists-Perioperative Transthoracic Echocardiography Protocols

The use of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has become the standard of care for most cardiac surgical procedures. There are guidelines established for training, practice, and quality improvement in perioperative TEE by the joint efforts of the American Society of Echocardiography and Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists. Cardiac point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) increasingly is being incorporated into anesthesiologists' training and practice. While a special "certification in Critical Care Echocardiography" was created by the National Board of Echocardiography in 2019, there currently exist no guidelines for training, certification, and practice of perioperative TTE by anesthesiologists. In this review, the authors describe the categories, indications and applications of perioperative TTE and provide a recommended sequence for performing an examination tailored to the evaluation of perioperative patients. Although the authors describe a protocol utilized at their institution, there are no standards described in the literature for PTTE. Cardiac anesthesiologists and cardiac anesthesia societies (Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, European Association of Cardiothoracic Anesthesiologists) must come forward to establish standards working in collaboration with echocardiography societies (American Society of Echocardiography, European Society of Cardiology).

Preoperative cardiac risk factors associated with in-hospital mortality in elderly patients without heart failure undergoing hip fracture surgery: a single-centre study

INTRODUCTION

In the present study, our aim was to ascertain the preoperative cardiac risk factors related to the in-hospital mortality in the elderly patients (aged over 65 years) who required preoperative cardiology consultation for hip fracture surgery.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The present study was a retrospective, single-centre study, which enrolled consecutive elderly patients without heart failure scheduled for hip fracture surgery in our institution. In all patients, an anesthesiologist performed a detailed preoperative evaluation and decided the need for the cardiac consultation. Patients underwent preoperative cardiac evaluation by a trained cardiologist using the algorithms proposed in the recent preoperative guidelines. The in-hospital mortality was the main outcome of the study.

RESULTS

In total, 277 elderly patients undergoing hip fracture surgery were enrolled in this analysis. The overall in-hospital mortality rate was 12.1% (n=30 cases). In a multivariate analysis, we found that insulin dependency, cancer, urea, presence of atrial fibrillation (AF) (OR: 3.906; 95% CI 1.470 to 10.381; p=0.006) and pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) (OR: 1.057; 95% CI 1.016 to 1.100; p=0.006) were the predictors of in-hospital mortality. The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that the optimal value of PASP in predicting the in-hospital mortality was 35 mm Hg (area under the curve=0.71; 95% CI 0.60 to 0.81, p<0.001) with sensitivity of 87.7% and specificity of 59.5%.

CONCLUSION

The present research found that the preoperative cardiac risk factors, namely AF and PASP, might be associated with increased in-hospital mortality in elderly patients without heart failure undergoing hip fracture surgery.