Hip fractures are associated with excess mortality, and several studies have pointed out the burden on society health care costs and the need to optimize cost effectiveness in treatment. The goal of our study was to investigate if patients with a higher risk of death after hip fracture could be identified using routine blood tests taken on admission.

All 530 hip fracture patients admitted to the Department of Orthopedics, Bispebjerg University Hospital from October 2008 till December 2009 were included prospectively. Patients under the age of 60 (n = 39) were excluded. Furthermore, because the purpose was to identify blood tests at the time of admission that could predict outcome, we only included patients that had project blood samples taken at the day of admission resulting in 324 hip fracture patients for further analysis. Follow up data on mortality were obtained from the national civil registry the first of February 2010. Predictors for mortality were determined by logistic and cox regression models. P < 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant. Of the 324 hip fracture patients under study, 66 (20%) died within the study period.

The results of stepwise Cox multivariate regression models for survival during the first three months after admission revealed that age, plasma creatinine and albumin predict mortality. The hazard ratios were 1.04 (95% CI: 1.005–1.09, p = 0.02), 1.01 (per unit increase)(95% CI: 1.01–1.02, p<0.0001), and 0.87 (95% CI: 0.80–0.94, p = 0.002) for age, plasma creatinine and albumin respectively. The 90 day mortality was 13% and 42% in patients with normal and elevated plasma creatinine levels respectively.

Hip fracture patients are known to have a high risk of post- operative mortality. Our findings suggest that it might be possible to identify at- risk patients that could possibly benefit from increased attention the first months following surgery using already available blood samples.