Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the change in the incidence rate, length of hospital stay (LOS), in-hospital mortality rate, and surgical method of hip fractures during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in South Korea where lockdown restrictions were not implemented. Methods: We calculated the expected values of the incidence of hip fractures, in-hospital mortality and LOS of hip fracture patients in 2020 (COVID period) based hip fracture database of the Korean National Health Insurance Review and Assessment (HIRA) during a 9-year period from 2011 to 2019 (pre-COVID period). A generalized estimating equation model with Poisson distribution and logarithmic link function was used to estimate adjusted annual percent change (PC) of incidence rate and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Then, we compared the annual incidence, in-hospital mortality rate and LOS in 2020 with the expected values. Results: The overall incidence rate of hip fracture in 2020 was not significantly different from the expected value (PC, −5%; 95% CI, −13 to 4; P = 0.280). In women, the incidence rate of hip fracture in age groups over 70 years was smaller than the predicted value (P < 0.001). The in-hospital mortality rate was not significantly different from the expected value (PC, 5%; 95% CI, −8 to 19; P = 0.461). The mean LOS was larger than the expected value by 2% (PC, 2%; 95% CI, 1 to 3; P < 0.001). In intertrochanteric fracture, the proportion of internal fixation was smaller than the predicted value by 2% (PC, −2%; 95% CI, −3 to −1; P < 0.001), and that of hemiarthroplasty was larger than the predicted value by 8% (PC, 8%; 95% CI, 4 to 14; P < 0.001). Conclusions In 2020, the incidence rate of hip fracture did not significantly decrease, and inhospital mortality rate did not significantly increase compared to the expected rates, which were projected based on the HIRA hip fracture data from 2011 to 2019. Only LOS increased slightly.

Purpose: An optimal once-daily radiotherapy (RT) regimen is under investigation for definitive concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in limited disease small cell lung cancer (LD-SCLC). We compared the efficacy and safety of dose escalation with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Materials and Methods: Between January 2016 and March 2021, patients treated with definitive CCRT for LD-SCLC with IMRT were retrospectively reviewed. Patients who received a total dose <50 Gy or those with a history of thoracic RT or surgery were excluded. The patients were divided into two groups (standard and dose-escalated) based on the total biologically effective dose (BED, α/β = 10) of 70 Gy. The chemotherapeutic regimen comprised four cycles of etoposide and cisplatin. Results: One hundred and twenty-two patients were analyzed and the median follow-up was 27.8 months (range, 4.4 to 76.9 months). The median age of the patients was 63 years (range, 35 to 78 years) and the majority had a history of smoking (86.0%). The 1- and 3-year overall survival rates of the escalated dose group were significantly higher than those of the standard group (93.5% and 50.5% vs. 76.7% and 33.3%, respectively; p = 0.008), as were the 1- and 3-year freedom from in-field failure rates (91.4% and 66.5% vs. 73.8% and 46.9%, respectively; p = 0.018). The incidence of grade 2 or higher acute and late pneumonitis was not significantly different between the two groups (p = 0.062, 0.185). Conclusion Dose-escalated once-daily CCRT with IMRT led to improved locoregional control and survival, with no increase in toxicity.

Because of the increasing global trend of patients with mental disorders, orthopedic surgeons are more likely to encounter orthopedic patients with mental disorders in clinical settings. Identifying the characteristics of these patients and implementing psychiatric management can affect the clinical outcome of orthopedic treatment. Thus, orthopedic surgeons need to assess the psychiatric medical history of orthopedic patients with mental disorders before surgery and understand the psychological and behavioral patterns of patients with mental disorders. In addition, appropriate psychiatric consultations and evaluations are necessary to prevent worsening of mental disorders before and after surgery.

Background: The purpose of our study was to assess the use of opioids before and after hip fracture in elderly patients in order to determine the effect of opioid use on all-cause mortality, and to analyze how the history of opioid use before fracture increases the risk of sustained use following hip fracture using a Korea nationwide cohort. Methods: Our study identified hip fracture patients from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Senior cohort. The index date was defined as 90-days after admission to the acute care hospital that fulfilled the eligibility criteria of elderly hip fracture. Patients were classified into past user, current user, and sustained user according to the use of opioid at each period based on the time of admission and index date. The opioids were classified into strong opioids and tramadol. A generalized estimating equation model with a Poisson distribution and logarithmic link function was performed to estimate the adjusted rate ratios (aRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess the association between past use and sustained use. A multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazard model was used to investigate the effects of strong opioid and tramadol use on all-cause mortality. Results: A total of 12,927 patients were included in our study. There were 7,384 (57.12%) opioid past-users, 11,467 (88.71%) opioid current-users, and 7,172 (55.48%) sustained users. In comparison of the death risk according to current use or the defined daily dose of the opioids or past opioid use, there were no significant differences in the adjusted hazard ratio for death in all groups, compared to the current non-users (P > 0.05). Among survivors 1 year after hip fracture, opioid past-use increased the risk of opioid sustained use by 1.52-fold (aRR; 95% CI, 1.45–1.8; P < 0.001). Conclusion Current use and past use of opioid did not increase all-cause mortality after hip fracture in elderly patients over 65 years of age. Past use of opioid before hip fracture increased risk of sustained use of opioid compared to the current opioid used without past use.

Background: The purpose of study was to investigate the incidence rate of suicide in elderly patients with osteoporotic fractures in a nested case-control model and to analyze the change in the risk of suicide death over time after each osteoporotic fracture. Methods: We used the National Health Insurance Service-Senior cohort of South Korea.Suicide cases and controls were matched based on sex and age at the index date. Controls were randomly selected at a 1:5 ratio from the set of individuals who were at risk of becoming a case at the time when suicide cases were selected. Conditional logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the association between each type of osteoporotic fracture and the risk of suicide death. Results: Three thousand seventy suicide cases and 15,350 controls were identified. Patients with hip fracture showed an increased risk of suicide death within 1 year of fracture (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 2.64; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.57–4.46; P < 0.001) compared to controls. However, the increased risk of suicide death in patients with hip fracture lasted up to 2 years (aOR = 1.59; 95% CI, 1.04–2.41; P = 0.031). Spine fracture increased the risk of suicide deaths for all observation periods. There was no evidence that humerus fracture increased the risk of suicide death during the observational period. Radius fracture increased only the risk of suicide death within 2 years of fracture (aOR = 1.43; 95% CI, 0.74–2.77; P = 0.282). Conclusion There were noticeable differences in both degree and duration of increased suicide risks depending on the type of osteoporotic fracture. Mental stress and suicide risk in elderly patients after osteoporotic fracture should be assessed differently depending on the types of fracture.

Background: The purpose of our study was to assess the use of opioids before and after hip fracture in elderly patients in order to determine the effect of opioid use on all-cause mortality, and to analyze how the history of opioid use before fracture increases the risk of sustained use following hip fracture using a Korea nationwide cohort. Methods: Our study identified hip fracture patients from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Senior cohort. The index date was defined as 90-days after admission to the acute care hospital that fulfilled the eligibility criteria of elderly hip fracture. Patients were classified into past user, current user, and sustained user according to the use of opioid at each period based on the time of admission and index date. The opioids were classified into strong opioids and tramadol. A generalized estimating equation model with a Poisson distribution and logarithmic link function was performed to estimate the adjusted rate ratios (aRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess the association between past use and sustained use. A multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazard model was used to investigate the effects of strong opioid and tramadol use on all-cause mortality. Results: A total of 12,927 patients were included in our study. There were 7,384 (57.12%) opioid past-users, 11,467 (88.71%) opioid current-users, and 7,172 (55.48%) sustained users. In comparison of the death risk according to current use or the defined daily dose of the opioids or past opioid use, there were no significant differences in the adjusted hazard ratio for death in all groups, compared to the current non-users (P > 0.05). Among survivors 1 year after hip fracture, opioid past-use increased the risk of opioid sustained use by 1.52-fold (aRR; 95% CI, 1.45–1.8; P < 0.001). Conclusion Current use and past use of opioid did not increase all-cause mortality after hip fracture in elderly patients over 65 years of age. Past use of opioid before hip fracture increased risk of sustained use of opioid compared to the current opioid used without past use.

Background: The purpose of study was to investigate the incidence rate of suicide in elderly patients with osteoporotic fractures in a nested case-control model and to analyze the change in the risk of suicide death over time after each osteoporotic fracture. Methods: We used the National Health Insurance Service-Senior cohort of South Korea.Suicide cases and controls were matched based on sex and age at the index date. Controls were randomly selected at a 1:5 ratio from the set of individuals who were at risk of becoming a case at the time when suicide cases were selected. Conditional logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the association between each type of osteoporotic fracture and the risk of suicide death. Results: Three thousand seventy suicide cases and 15,350 controls were identified. Patients with hip fracture showed an increased risk of suicide death within 1 year of fracture (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 2.64; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.57–4.46; P < 0.001) compared to controls. However, the increased risk of suicide death in patients with hip fracture lasted up to 2 years (aOR = 1.59; 95% CI, 1.04–2.41; P = 0.031). Spine fracture increased the risk of suicide deaths for all observation periods. There was no evidence that humerus fracture increased the risk of suicide death during the observational period. Radius fracture increased only the risk of suicide death within 2 years of fracture (aOR = 1.43; 95% CI, 0.74–2.77; P = 0.282). Conclusion There were noticeable differences in both degree and duration of increased suicide risks depending on the type of osteoporotic fracture. Mental stress and suicide risk in elderly patients after osteoporotic fracture should be assessed differently depending on the types of fracture.

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze complications of complete hip arthroplasty through systematic review and network meta-analysis of comparative studies of direct anterior approach (DAA), anterolateral approach (LA), and posterolateral approach (PA). Methods: Prospective randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-experimental designs evaluating clinical outcomes of DAA, LA, and PA for complete hip arthroplasty are valid if they meet the following criteria: 1) Comparison of clinical outcomes between the three methods for main complete hip arthroplasty (total hip arthroplasty, THA); 2) Compared at least one of the following outcomes: blood loss, operating time, and transfusion volume; 3) Sufficient data were available to extract and pool, i.e., mean reported, standard deviation and number of subjects. A network meta-analysis was used to determine the results of treatment across various surgical approaches. Indirect comparisons between the two surgical approaches was made by borrowing details from the standard comparator (i.e., the posterior approach). Results: Eight prospective RCTs were included in the meta-analysis of the network. The operation time of the LA was longer than that of PA (standardized mean difference [SMD], 0.96; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.74–1.18; P < 0.001). DAA also had significantly longer operation time than PA (SMD, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.24–0.66; P < 0.001). However, blood loss of the DAA was the highest compared to other approaches (SMD, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.39–0.82; P = 0.002). Conclusion When performing THA with DAA, we should pay attention to increased operation time and blood loss.

BACKGROUND: The purposes of this study were 1) to investigate the incidence of pneumonia during hospitalization in elderly hip fracture patients, 2) to evaluate the effect of pneumonia on 30 day to 1 year mortality and 3) to analyze the impact of age and gender on the mortality rate in the pneumonia patients using a nationwide cohort of Korea. METHODS: The Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) database included approximately 5.5 million Korean enrollees > 60 years of age. A total of 588,147 participants were randomly selected for senior cohort using 10% simple random sampling. We identified senile (> 65 years old) patients who underwent hip fracture surgery from January 2005 to December 2014 and those who developed pneumonia during hospitalization from the NHIS-Senior cohort. The index date of hip fracture occurrence was defined as the date of admission to the acute care hospital. The last date of follow-up was defined as the date of death or 31 December 2015, whichever came first. A multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards model was used to investigate the effects of pneumonia on all-cause mortality. RESULTS: During the enrollment period, a total of 14,736 patients, who were older than 65 years, underwent hip fracture surgeries. Among them, 1,629 patients (11.05%) developed pneumonia during the hospitalization. The pneumonia incidence was 16.39% (601/3,666) in men patients and 9.29% (1,028/10,042) in women patients. Compared to 13,107 non-pneumonia patients, adjusted relative risk (aRR) of death in pneumonia patients was 2.69 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.14–3.38; P < 0.001) within postoperative 30-day, 3.40 (95% CI, 3.01–3.83; P < 0.001) within postoperative 90-day, 2.86 (95% CI, 2.61–3.15; P < 0.001) within postoperative 180-day and 2.31 (95% CI, 2.14–2.50; P < 0.001) within postoperative 1-year. According to patient's age, the aRR of death in pneumonia patients was 5.75 (95% CI, 2.89–11.43) in adults aged < 70 years, 5.14 (95% CI, 4.08–6.46) in those aged 70–79 years, 3.29 (95% CI, 2.81–3.86) in those aged 80–89 years and 2.02 (95% CI, 1.52–2.69) in those aged ≥ 90 years. The aRR was 3.63 (95% CI, 3.01–4.38) in men pneumonia patients, and 3.27 (95% CI, 2.80–3.83) in women pneumonia patients. CONCLUSION The prevalence of pneumonia in elderly hip fracture patients was 11.05%. Men had higher incidence (16.39%) than women (9.29%). Compared to non-pneumonia patients, the pneumonia patients had higher 30-day to 1-year mortalities with aRR of 2.31 to 3.40. They had increased mortality in all age groups older than 65 years with aRR of 1.52 to 4.08. Both genders of pneumonia patients had higher risk of mortality (aRR, 3.63 in men and 3.27 in women) compared to non-pneumonia patients.