A retrospective analysis of minimally invasive internal fixation versus nonoperative conservative management of pelvic ring fragility fractures and the elderly

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the adoption of treatment patterns for hip fractures combined with minimally invasive surgical treatment of fragility fractures of the pelvis in older individuals and reviewed and analysed the treatment efficacy and feasibility. METHODS AND DATA: From September 2017 to February 2021, 135 older individuals with fragility fractures of the pelvis were admitted to our hospital. We retrospectively analysed patients who received surgical or conservative treatments. The general preoperative data, including sex, age, disease duration, cause of injury, AO/OTA type, BMI, bone mineral density, time from injury to admission, time from injury to surgery, ASA classification, number of underlying diseases, mean bed rest, clinical fracture healing, VAS score and Majeed functional score, were recorded. RESULTS: The mean follow-up time for all 135 patients was 10.5 ± 3.6 months. Among 135 patients, 95 survived, and 11 and 29 patients passed after the surgical (mortality rate = 17.74%) and conservative (mortality rate = 39.73%) treatments, respectively. The average follow-up time for the 95 surviving patients was 14.5 ± 1.8 months. The Majeed and VAS scores for the operation group were significantly better than those of the conservative group. The bed rest and fracture healing times were also shorter in the surgical treatment group than in the conservative group. CONCLUSION: The use of a minimally invasive surgical treatment combined with the geriatric hip fracture treatment model to treat fragility fractures of the pelvis improved the quality of life in older patients.