Prognostic value of the c-reactive protein/prognostic nutritional index ratio after hip fracture surgery in the elderly population

BACKGROUND: More and more older patients receive the surgery after hip fracture. However, the mortality rate is high. Prognostic nutritional index (PNI) is associated with prognosis in hip fracture patients. In the current study, we proposed a novel prognostic score, named c-reactive protein/PNI ratio (CRP/PNI ratio), for predicting the prognosis for geriatric orthopedic population. METHODS: This is a prospective study. Eighty cases of hip fracture surgery in the elderly population were studied to reveal the relationship between the CRP/PNI ratio and the clinicopathological characteristics of the elderly patients. Clinical data included age, sex, weight, length of stay, duration of surgery, comorbidity, and biological data were collected. The primary endpoint was the 1-year mortality rate. RESULTS: Cox regression and log-rank tests were used to evaluate the correlation of CRP/PNI to the one-year mortality. The one-year mortality rate was low in the patients with a low CRP/PNI ratio (P < 0.001). Univariate and multivariate survival analyses proved that CRP/PNI was an important factor to predict the one-year mortality rate of the geriatric hip fracture surgery patients. CONCLUSION: Low CRP/PNI ratio was significantly associated with low one-year mortality rate in older patients after hip fracture surgery.