A comparison of general versus regional anesthesia for hip fracture surgery: a meta-analysis

In this study, we aimed to compare the effect of general versus regional anesthesia on postoperative outcomes in patients undergoing surgical repair of hip fracture. Randomized controlled trials, prospective studies and retrospective observational studies were searched in PubMed, Medline and Embase database published between January 2005 and March 2014. The overall outcome was measured by odds ratios (ORs) and risk ratios (RRs) with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). A total of 7 trials, involving 36448 patients received general anesthesia and 33952 patients received regional anesthesia, were included in present meta-analysis. We found that the 30-day mortality rate was lower in general anesthesia cases than that in regional cases (5.3% vs. 6.3%). Overall, our results demonstrated that there was no significant difference in 30-day mortality between two types of anesthesia in patients with hip fracture surgery (RR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.92-1.04, P = 0.48), indicating that types of anesthesia might not be a risk factor for hip fracture surgery. No statistically significant difference was observed in other outcome measures (P > 0.05). In conclusion, our results suggested that the choice of anesthesia (general or regional) should be made by the anesthesiologist on an individual basis and based on the patient's medical conditions. Further research is still needed to evaluate the effect of these two anesthesia methods.