Clinical and subclinical arteriosclerotic disease in octagenarians with hip fracture. A case-control study

Background and objectives: Evaluate clinical and subclinical arteriosclerotic disease in older patients with hip fracture compared with patients without fracture in order to increase knowledge about the relation between both diseases in older individuals.

Patients and methods: Age- and sex-matched case-control study of octogenarians with and without recent hip fracture. Vascular risk factors, subclinical vascular diseases (assessed by carotid plaques, carotid intima media thickness and arterial stiffness) as well as cardiovascular diseases were analyzed. Univariate and multivariate logistic models were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) to assess the association of the arteriosclerosis and hip fracture.

Results: We analyzed 95 patients per group with a median age of 82 [79-87] years of whom 77.9% were female. Patients in both groups have elevated rates of vascular disease (25%) without differences between them. Patients with hip fracture had higher subclinical arteriosclerotic alterations with higher percentage of carotid plaques (OR 3.25 [1.06-9.97]) compared with the control group.

Conclusions: Older patients with hip fracture had significantly higher presence of subclinical alterations but not increase on rate of cardiovascular arteriosclerotic disease compared with those without hip fracture.