Admission neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and postoperative mortality in elderly patients with hip fracture

Hip fractures in elderly patients are associated with a high mortality rate. Most deaths associated with hip fracture result from complications after surgery. Recent studies suggest that the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), which is a laboratory marker used to evaluate systemic inflammation, may be useful to estimate excess mortality. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of admission NLR in elderly patients with hip fracture.

We evaluated patients admitted to the Orthopaedic Surgery Department of Balikesir-Edremit State Hospital. Inclusion criteria were female gender, age between 65 and 80 years, ASA score of 3, unstable intertrochanteric fracture treated with hemiarthroplasty, and time between fracture and surgery less than 72 h. Patients with multiple fracture, previous same side or other side hip surgery, pathological fracture, such as fracture caused by tumor or metabolic bone disease (e.g., Paget's disease), and malignancies were excluded from this study (purposive sampling technique). Finally, "case" (group 1) was defined as patients who died within 1 year after surgery, whereas "control" (group 2) was defined as patients who survived. Patients in group 1 and 2 were statistically compared in terms of NLR value on hospital admission. A total of 22 patients (44%) were included in group 1, and 28 (56%) were included in group 2.

We found that the admission NLR values of patients in the mortality group were significantly higher than those of patients in the control group (p<0.001). The cutoff value of NLR was calculated as 4.7 on ROC analysis.

We believe that the NLR value at admission could be used for risk stratification of mortality in elderly patients with hip fracture.