HIP-FRACTURES IN ADULTS YOUNGER THAN 50 YEARS OF AGE - EPIDEMIOLOGY AND RESULTS

A review of the records of 3147 patients with hip fractures admitted t o the authors' institution during a 5-year period revealed that 95 (3% ) patients were aged 50 years or less at the time of fracture, Of pati ents between the ages of 20 and 40 years, hip fracture most commonly o ccurred in men after high-energy injuries, These injuries commonly occ urred in the subtrochanteric and basicervical regions, or as a vertica l transcervical Fracture, In contrast, most patients between 40 and 50 years of age were medically frail and sustained osteoporotic-type fra ctures during simple falls, A treatment protocol of early reduction fo llowed by internal fixation was evaluated in 75 nonpathologic Fracture s, At a mean of 25 months, fracture union with a good or satisfactory functional outcome was found in 57 (76%) patients, and 5 (7%) patients died of unrelated medical problems, Complications of primary treatmen t developed in 16 (21%) patients, but only 13 (17%) revision procedure s were required, A satisfactory functional outcome was found in 10 pat ients who had uncomplicated revision surgery, but there were poor func tional results in the 3 who required tertiary surgery, Despite the pre viously reported poor results of treatment of hip fracture in young ad ults, these results demonstrate that satisfactory results can be achie ved with early, accurate fracture reduction followed by rigid internal fixation.