ASA Grade and Elderly Patients With Femoral Neck Fracture

PURPOSE This prospective study was designed to evaluate the effect of American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) score on time to surgery, length of hospital stay, and 30-day mortality in elderly patients with femoral neck fracture. METHODS A total of 249 patients admitted with femoral neck fracture were included in the study. Mean age was 84 years (95% confidence interval 83 to 85). Two patients were ASA I, 110 patients were ASA II, 125 were ASA III, and 12 were ASA IV. RESULTS The mean time to surgery was 18.9 hours for ASA I patients, 34.4 hours for ASA II patients, 42.8 hours for ASA III patients, and 61 hours for ASA IV patients (P = .005). The mean hospital stay was 11.5 days (6.3-15.2) for ASA I patients, 17.6 days (4.2-98.8) for ASA II patients, 22.9 days (4.1-120.3) for ASA III patients, and 29 days (2.4-86.0) for ASA IV patients (P = .026); 85% of the patients who died within 30 days of admission were of ASA III-IV. CONCLUSION Our study shows that patients with higher ASA score have delay in surgery, longer hospital stay, and increase in 30-day mortality. We conclude that ASA grade is a simple and effective tool to predict the above-mentioned outcomes in these patients.