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.