ECTS2013 Poster Presentations Osteoporosis: pathophysiology and epidemiology (49 abstracts)
1Euro Mediterranean Scientific Bio-Medical Institute, ISBEM Research Centre, Brindisi, Italy; 2Division of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Tor Vergata Foundation University Hospital, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy; 3Division of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitative Medicine, Second University of Naples, Naples, Italy; 4Department of Surgery and Traslational Medicine, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
Objectives: We aimed to evaluate hospitalization rate of femoral neck fractures in the elderly Italian population over ten years.
Methods: We analyzed national hospitalizations records collected at central level by Ministry of Health from 2000 to 2009. Age- and sex-specific rates of fractures occurred at femoral neck in people ≥65 years old. We performed a sub-analysis over a 3-year period (20072009), presenting data per five-year age groups, in order to evaluate the incidence of the hip fracture in the oldest population.
Results: We estimated a total of 839 008 hospitalizations due to femoral neck fractures between 2000 and 2009 in people ≥65, with an overall increase of 29.8% over 10 years. The incidence per 10000 inhabitants remarkably increased in people ≥75, passing from 158.5 to 166.8 (+5.2%) and from 72.6 to 77.5 (+6.8%) over the ten-year period in women and men, respectively. The oldest age group (people >85 years old) accounted only for more than 42% of total hospital admissions in 2009 (n=39 000), despite representing 2.5% of the Italian population. Particularly, women aged >85 accounted for 30.8% of total fractures, although they represented only 1.8% of the general population. The results of this analysis indicate that femoral neck fractures progressively increased from 2000 to 2009, but a reduction can be observed for the first time in the number of fractures suffered by women ≤75 (−6.5%, between 2004 and 2009).
Conclusion: Hospitalizations for hip fractures in Italy are continuously increasing, although women aged 6574 years old start showing a decreasing trend.