Abstract

This is a cohort study involving 98 patients who presented to a regional orthopaedic unit with a hip fracture. Blood loss was assessed by pre and post operative haemoglobin concentrations, and transfusion requirements were used as outcome measures. The influence of pre-operative aspirin use and fracture type was analysed with respect to these outcome measures. Forty two percent of patients were regular aspirin users, and were comparable to the non aspirin group, apart from having a significantly greater prevalence of atherosclerotic vascular disease. There was no significant difference between the aspirin and non aspirin groups in terms of pre-operative haemoglobin concentrations, peri-operative changes in haemoglobin levels and transfusion requirements. Fifty one percent of patients had extracapsular hip fractures, and these patients were comparable in terms of demographic characteristics, including aspirin use, to the group with intracapsular hip fractures. The extracapsular hip fracture group were found to have significantly increased peri-operative blood loss as measured by changes in the haemoglobin level, and in transfusion requirements when analysed against the intracapsular hip fracture group. We found that it is the fracture site, rather than aspirin use pre-operatively, that is predictive of blood loss and transfusion requirements in patients presenting with hip fractures.