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Introduction: Patients with hip fracture often suffer complications leading to increased mortality and morbidity. Pain management are important, but opioids has many side effects. The aim of this study was to investigate whether Femoral Nerve Block (FNB) can reduce complications during hospital stay, with special focus on delirium compared to conventional pain management with opioids among patients with hip fracture, including those with dementia.

Patients & Methods: In a randomized controlled trial involving patients >70 years with hip fracture (trochanteric and cervical), including those with dementia. Preoperatively, patients (n=236) were consecutively assigned to receive FNB and opioids if required (intervention group, n = 116) or conventional pain management using opioids if required (control group, n = 120). Delirium was set according to different assessments and DSM-IV-TR criteria. Other complications were set by a specialist in geriatric medicine and a trained research nurse according to a predefined protocol.

Results: Most patients, 157 (66%), were women, mean age was 84 (+/- 6.7) years and 109 (46%) patients had dementia disorders. Forty-four patients (38.9%) developed delirium preoperatively in the intervention group compared to 59 (49.2%) patients in the control group (p=0.116). Common postoperative complications were pre- and postoperative delirium, nutritional problems, anaemia, constipation and urinary tract infection with no significant difference between the groups. In the subgroup analysis among patients with dementia, a large proportion developed delirium postoperative (96.3%) and they had a long duration of delirium during hospital stay (5.9 +/- 1.8), however no difference between the groups.

Conclusion: Despite less preoperative pain and need of opioids, FNB did not reduce the incidence of complications. However, a preoperative FNB may result in less preoperative delirium, but this should be further investigated. As pain treatment, FNB is a good alternative with few documented adverse effects in order to reduce pain and opioids among patients with hip fracture.

BACKGROUND: Despite advances in operative techniques and preoperative care, proximal femur fractures (PFF) still represent a great public health problem. Displacement and fracture stability have been assumed as important determinants of treatment modality and outcome in such fractures. Purpose of this study was to determine whether the radiological severity of PFF fractures has increased over time.

METHODS: In a cohort study, the plain radiographs of all patients with PFF aged over 50 years who were admitted to Umeå University Hospital in 1981/82, 2002 and 2012 were recruited to examine the types of fractures.

RESULTS: The ratio of undisplaced to displaced femoral neck (FN) fractures was 30 to 70% in 1981/82, 28 to 72% in 2002 and 25 to 75% in 2012. The ratio of stable to unstable intertrochanteric (IT) fractures was 64 to 36% in 1981/82, 68 to 32% in 2002 and 75 to 25% in 2012. The ratio of simple to comminute subtrochanteric fractures was 35 to 65% in 1981/82, 16 to 84% in 2002 and 12 to 88% in 2012. In both FN and IT fractures we found no statistical difference among these 3 study periods, p = 0.67 and p = 0.40. In subtrochanteric fractures we saw a tendency towards more comminute subtrochanteric fractures (1981/82 to 2012), p = 0.09.

CONCLUSIONS: We found no significant increment in the radiological severity of FN and IT over a 30 years' period. However, there was tendency towards an increase in comminute subtrochanteric fractures.

Introduction: The number of elderly people with hip fracture and dementia is increasing, and many of these patients suffer from pain. Opioids are difficult to adjust and side effects are common, especially with increased age and among patients with dementia. Preoperative femoral nerve block is an alternative pain treatment. Aim: To investigate whether preoperative femoral nerve block reduced acute pain and opioid use after hip fracture among elderly patients, including those with dementia. Patients and methods: In this randomised controlled trial involving patients aged >= 70 years with hip fracture (trochanteric and cervical), including those with dementia, we compared femoral nerve block with conventional pain management, with opioid use if required. The primary outcome was preoperative pain, measured at five timepoints using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Preoperative opioid consumption was also registered. Results: The study sample comprised 266 patients admitted consecutively to the Orthopaedic Ward. The mean age was 84.1 (+/- 6.9) years, 64% of participants were women, 44% lived in residential care facilities, and 120 (45.1%) had dementia diagnoses. Patients receiving femoral nerve block had significantly lower self-rated pain scores from baseline to 12 h after admission than did controls. Self-rated and proxy VAS pain scores decreased significantly in these patients from baseline to 12 h compared with controls (p < 0.001 and p = 0.003, respectively). Patients receiving femoral nerve block required less opioids than did controls, overall (2.3 +/- 4.0 vs. 5.7 +/- 5.2 mg, p < 0.001) and in the subgroup with dementia (2.1 +/- 3.3 vs. 5.8 +/- 5.0 mg, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Patients with hip fracture, including those with dementia, who received femoral nerve block had lower pain scores and required less opioids before surgery compared with those receiving conventional pain management. Femoral nerve block seems to be a feasible pain treatment for elderly people, including those with dementia. 

BACKGROUND: To inform targeted prevention, we studied patterns of trauma recidivism and whether a first injury predicts the risk for a recurrent injury.

METHODS: In a population-based study of 98,502 adult injury events 1999-2012, at the emergency department of Umeå University Hospital, Sweden, we compared non-recidivists with recidivists in terms of patients' sex, age, type of injury and severity of the injury.

RESULTS: Thirty-six percent of all patients suffered recurrent injuries, which were associated with a higher proportion of inpatient care and more hospital days. Young men and elderly women were at the highest risk for trauma recidivism. At 20 to 24 years, men had a 2.4 (CI 95 % 2.3-2.5) higher risk than women, a 90 years old woman had almost a 10-fold higher risk for another moderate/severe injury than a 20 years old one. A fracture were associated with a hazard ratio of 1.28 (CI 95 % 1.15-1.42) among men younger than 65 years and 1.31 (CI 95 % 1.12-1.54) for men older than 65 years for a subsequent moderate/severe injury. For women younger than 65 years a fracture was associated with a hazard ratio of 1.44 (CI 95 % 1.28-1.62) for a subsequent moderate/severe injury. A sprain carries a higher risk for a new moderate/severe injury for both men and women and in both age groups; the hazard ratio was 1.13 (CI 95 % 1.00-1.26) for men younger than 65 years, 1.42 (CI 95 % 1.01-1.99) for men older than 65 years, 1.19 (CI 95 % 1.05-1.35) for women younger than 65 years and 1.26 (CI 95 % 1.02-1.56) for women older than 65 years. A higher degree of injury severity was associated with a higher risk for a new moderate/severe injury.

CONCLUSION: Trauma recidivism is common and represents a large proportion of all injured. Age and sex are associated with the risk for new injury. Injury types and severity, also have implications for future injury.

The extent to which low-frequency (minor allele frequency (MAF) between 1-5%) and rare (MAF <= 1%) variants contribute to complex traits and disease in the general population is mainly unknown. Bone mineral density (BMD) is highly heritable, a major predictor of osteoporotic fractures, and has been previously associated with common genetic variants(1-8), as well as rare, population specific, coding variants(9). Here we identify novel non-coding genetic variants with large effects on BMD (n(total) = 53,236) and fracture (n(total) = 508,253) in individuals of European ancestry from the general population. Associations for BMD were derived from whole-genome sequencing (n = 2,882 from UK10K (ref. 10); a population-based genome sequencing consortium), whole-exome sequencing (n = 3,549), deep imputation of genotyped samples using a combined UK10K/1000 Genomes reference panel (n = 26,534), and de novo replication genotyping (n = 20,271). We identified a low-frequency non-coding variant near a novel locus, EN1, with an effect size fourfold larger than the mean of previously reported common variants for lumbar spine BMD8 (rs11692564(T), MAF51.6%, replication effect size510.20 s.d., P-meta = 2 x 10(-14)), which was also associated with a decreased risk of fracture (odds ratio = 0.85; P = 2 x 10(-11); ncases = 98,742 and ncontrols = 409,511). Using an En1cre/flox mouse model, we observed that conditional loss of En1 results in low bone mass, probably as a consequence of high bone turnover. We also identified a novel low frequency non-coding variant with large effects on BMD near WNT16 (rs148771817(T), MAF = 1.2%, replication effect size +10.41 s.d., P-meta = 1 x 10(-11)). In general, there was an excess of association signals arising from deleterious coding and conserved non-coding variants. These findings provide evidence that low-frequency non-coding variants have large effects on BMD and fracture, thereby providing rationale for whole-genome sequencing and improved imputation reference panels to study the genetic architecture of complex traits and disease in the general population.

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis is a systemic skeletal disease characterised by reduced bone mineral density and increased susceptibility to fracture; these traits are highly heritable. Both common and rare copy number variants (CNVs) potentially affect the function of genes and may influence disease risk.

AIM: To identify CNVs associated with osteoporotic bone fracture risk.

METHOD: We performed a genome-wide CNV association study in 5178 individuals from a prospective cohort in the Netherlands, including 809 osteoporotic fracture cases, and performed in silico lookups and de novo genotyping to replicate in several independent studies.

RESULTS: A rare (population prevalence 0.14%, 95% CI 0.03% to 0.24%) 210 kb deletion located on chromosome 6p25.1 was associated with the risk of fracture (OR 32.58, 95% CI 3.95 to 1488.89; p=8.69×10(-5)). We performed an in silico meta-analysis in four studies with CNV microarray data and the association with fracture risk was replicated (OR 3.11, 95% CI 1.01 to 8.22; p=0.02). The prevalence of this deletion showed geographic diversity, being absent in additional samples from Australia, Canada, Poland, Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden, but present in the Netherlands (0.34%), Spain (0.33%), USA (0.23%), England (0.15%), Scotland (0.10%), and Ireland (0.06%), with insufficient evidence for association with fracture risk.

CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that deletions in the 6p25.1 locus may predispose to higher risk of fracture in a subset of populations of European origin; larger and geographically restricted studies will be needed to confirm this regional association. This is a first step towards the evaluation of the role of rare CNVs in osteoporosis.

Several studies have investigated the relation between bone mass density and cadmium exposure, but only few studies have been performed on fractures and biomarkers of cadmium. This study analyzed the association between hip fracture risk and cadmium in erythrocytes (Ery-Cd). Prospective samples from the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study's biobank were used for 109 individuals who later in life had sustained a low-trauma hip fracture, matched with two controls of the same age and gender. The mean concentration of Ery-Cd (±SD) in case samples was 1.3 ± 1.4 versus 0.9 ± 1.0 μg/L in controls. The odds ratio (OR) was 1.63 [95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.10-2.42] for suffering a hip fracture for each microgram per liter increase in Ery-Cd. However, when taking smoking into consideration (never, former, or current), neither Ery-Cd nor smoking showed a statistically significant increase in fracture risk. Using multiple conditional logistic regression with BMI, height, and smoking, the estimated OR for a 1-μg/L increase in Ery-Cd was 1.52 (95 % CI 0.77-2.97). Subgroup analysis showed an increased fracture risk among women (OR = 1.94, 95 % CI 1.18-3.20, for a 1 μg/L increase), which also remained in the multiple analysis (OR = 3.33, 95 % CI 1.29-8.56). This study shows that fracture risk is associated with Ery-Cd. It is, however, not possible to draw firm conclusions on whether cadmium is the causal factor or whether other smoking-related factors cause this association. Subgroup analysis shows that cadmium is a risk factor for hip fracture among women.

Middle-aged women with active commuting had significantly lower risk for wrist fracture than women commuting by car/bus.

INTRODUCTION: Our purpose was to investigate whether a physically active lifestyle in middle-aged women was associated with a reduced risk of later sustaining a low-trauma wrist fracture.

METHODS: The Umeå Fracture and Osteoporosis (UFO) study is a population-based nested case-control study investigating associations between lifestyle and fragility fractures. From a cohort of ~35,000 subjects, we identified 376 female wrist fracture cases who had reported data regarding their commuting habits, occupational, and leisure physical activity, before they sustained their fracture. Each fracture case was compared with at least one control drawn from the same cohort and matched for age and week of reporting data, yielding a total of 778 subjects. Mean age at baseline was 54.3 ± 5.8 years, and mean age at fracture was 60.3 ± 5.8 years.

RESULTS: Conditional logistic regression analysis with adjustments for height, body mass index, smoking, and menopausal status showed that subjects with active commuting (especially walking) were at significantly lower risk of sustaining a wrist fracture (OR 0.48; 95 % CI 0.27-0.88) compared with those who commuted by car or bus. Leisure time activities such as dancing and snow shoveling were also associated with a lower fracture risk, whereas occupational activity, training, and leisure walking or cycling were unrelated to fracture risk.

CONCLUSION: This study suggests that active commuting is associated with a lower wrist fracture risk, in middle-aged women.