Orthopaedic surgerySep 27, 2023

Comparing Spinal and General Anesthesia in Hip Fracture Surgery for Older Patients

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗OA ↗

Updated Mar 31, 2026

Abstract

Spinal anesthesia was associated with a lower risk of intraoperative and reduced dosage in older patients undergoing hip fracture surgery.

Spinal anesthesia resulted in a risk ratio of 0.81 for hypotension compared to general anesthesia.
Patients receiving spinal anesthesia required 20.94 mg less ephedrine on average than those under general anesthesia.
No significant differences were found in blood loss, myocardial infarction, heart failure, stroke, postoperative nausea and vomiting, delirium, or mortality between the two anesthesia groups.
The analysis included nine studies of methodological quality, with no publication bias detected.

Simplified

OBJECTIVE: Hip fractures are the most common fractures among older adults, with most patients undergoing surgery. The debate regarding the type of anesthetic technique for hip fracture surgery is still ongoing. This meta-analysis aimed to compare the intraoperative and postoperative outcomes of spinal and general anesthesia in older patients undergoing hip fracture surgery.

METHODS: Eligible studies that compared the effects of spinal and general anesthesia were systematically searched from PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library until May 27, 2022. The intraoperative and postoperative outcomes of the two anesthesia techniques were compared. Quality assessment, heterogeneity analysis, and publication bias of the studies were also assessed.

RESULTS: Nine articles of methodological quality were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled results revealed that there were significant differences in (risk ratio [RR] (95% confidence interval [CI]) = 0.81 (0.68, 0.97), p = 0.02) and dose (weighted mean difference [WMD] [95%CI] = -20.94 [-37.50, -4.37] mg, p = 0.01) between the spinal and general anesthesia groups. However, no significant differences were observed in the use of ephedrine (RR [95% CI] = 0.77 [0.19, 3.05]), blood loss (WMD [95%CI] = -34.38 [-89.56, 20.80) mL], myocardial infarction (RR [95% CI] = 0.78 [0.31, 1.94] mL), heart failure (RR [95% CI] = 0.87 [0.17, 4.36] mL), stroke (RR [95%CI) = 0.65 [0.22, 1.95] mL), postoperative nausea and vomiting (RR [95% CI] = 0.88 [0.17, 4.35] mL), delirium (RR [95% CI] = 1.08 [0.89, 1.31] mL), and mortality (RR [95% CI] = 1.10 [0.72, 1.68] mL) (all p < 0.05). No publication bias was observed in any of the included studies.

CONCLUSION: Compared to general anesthesia, spinal anesthesia was associated with a lower risk of intraoperative hypotension and lower doses of ephedrine in older patients undergoing hip fracture surgery.

Key numbers

0.81

Decrease in Intraoperative Risk

Risk ratio comparing spinal vs. general anesthesia

-20.94 mg

Decrease in Dose

Weighted mean difference in dosage

Full Text

We can’t show the full text here under this license.

View Full Text ↗

Comparing Spinal and General Anesthesia in Hip Fracture Surgery for Older Patients

Abstract

Key numbers

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief

Abstract

Key numbers

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief