HIP Fracture Accelerated Surgical TreaTment And Care tracK (HIP ATTACK) Trial — HIPATTACK  

Hip Fractures Clinical Trial

Official title: HIP Fracture Accelerated Surgical TreaTment And Care tracK (HIP ATTACK) Trial - Feasibility Pilot

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

There is preliminary evidence that suggests early surgical treatment of a hip fracture may improve patients' outcomes. The investigators propose to do a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the feasibility of a large RCT comparing accelerated surgical repair (i.e. surgery within 6 hours of a hip fracture diagnosis) versus standard care (typically surgery after 36-48 hours).

Clinical Trial Description

Hip fractures have devastating consequences: the 30-day mortality rate for men is 9% and for women is 5%, and the risk of disability is substantial. Even among patients who are community-dwelling prior to their hip fracture, 11% are bed-ridden and 16% are in a long-term care facility after one year.

The trauma associated with a hip fracture results in pain, bleeding, and immobility. These factors initiate inflammatory, hypercoaguable, stress, and catabolic states that can cause medical complications, including death. Proposed mechanisms for increased mortality and morbidity associated with delayed surgery include 1) complications related to a protracted immobilization (e.g. venous thromboembolism, atelectasis and pneumonia, urinary tract infections, pressure ulcers, and muscle mass loss) and 2) increased cardiovascular events.

Delay in surgery may result in protracted immobility and the associated complications, as well as prolonged exposure to the hypercoagulable-inflammatory-sympathetic state which may increase cardiovascular events. Observational data suggests that these mechanisms are indeed important: delayed surgical repair is associated with increased mortality and morbidity after a hip fracture.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies addressed the impact of timing of surgery on the outcome after hip fracture. Five studies reported adjusted measures for mortality. The pooled estimate, based on 721 deaths in 4,208 patients, suggested that early surgical treatment (i.e. within the cut-off of the individual studies) of hip fractures was associated with a significant reduction in mortality (adjusted risk ratio [RR] 0.81, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.68-0.96).

It is possible that these observational data substantially underestimates the real potential of early surgery. The reason is that the "early surgery" in these studies occurred within 24, 48 or 72 hours. If surgery could be uniformly undertaken within 6 hours, given the potential benefits of earlier mobilization and minimization of the period of the inflammatory hypercoagulable state, the benefits might be substantially greater. The substantial impact of treatment of acute myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke within hours adds credence to this possibility.

Despite the evidence, and the possibility that a larger effect might result from even earlier surgery, current data supports only weak inferences. The evidence relies on observational data and is therefore susceptible to residual confounding. The strength of inference from current evidence does not lay a sufficient solid base to justify the substantial system modification required to facilitate accelerated surgical access for all hip fracture patients.

The main factors that cause surgical delay after a hip fracture are: 1) the patient presents with comorbidities and surgery is deferred for preoperative diagnostics, risk stratification, and medical optimization ("medical clearance") and 2) surgical operating room and staff resources are not available because hip fractures have low priority in urgent surgery lists ("queuing"). Both medical clearance and queuing are modifiable issues - addressing these obstacles has the potential to substantially reduce surgical wait times.

Our ultimate goal is to undertake a large multicentre randomized controlled trial (RCT) of accelerated surgical care (i.e., goal of surgery within 6 hours of diagnosis) versus usual timing of surgery among elderly adults diagnosed with a hip fracture. This protocol is for a pilot RCT that will inform the feasibility of undertaking a large RCT. ;

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Single Blind (Outcomes Assessor)

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Fractures, Bone
• Hip Fractures

• NCT number: NCT01344343
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Population Health Research Institute
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: July 2011
• Completion date: November 2012