Background
Hip arthroplasty (HA), including total hip arthroplasty and semi-hip arthroplasty, is one of the most common surgical procedures performed in geriatric femoral neck fracture. Although HA is a safe, effective procedure, a small percentage of HA procedures do result in major complications, including pneumonia, surgical site infection(SSI), wound dehiscence, prosthetic joint infection(PJI), heart failure, and death [1–4]. Prior studies have identified respiratory disease, older age, diabetes mellitus, and prior infection as risk factors for postoperative complications [1, 5–8].
Malnutrition has been identified as another potential risk factor for poor outcomes. It has been shown to increase the risk of SSI, wound dehiscence, and PJI [4, 9, 10]. Unfortunately,
it has been shown that more than half of in-hospital geriatric patients present with malnutrition [11]. Hypoalbuminemia (serum albumin concentration < 3.5 g/dL) is most commonly used serum marker of malnutrition [12]. It has shown that the percentage of hypoalbuminemia in elderly patients with hip fracture is nearly 50% [13, 14].
Although hypoalbuminemia is potentially modifiable before the operation, it is difficult to achieve for a limited time for the purpose of reducing complications (such as pneumonia, deep vine thrombosis) due to prolonged bed rest in geriatric femoral neck fracture patients.
Current nutrition guidelines state that oral nutritional supplements are recommended in geriatric patients after hip fracture and orthopedic surgery to reduce complications [14–16]. However, contradictory results have found. Several studies, including RCT (randomized placebo-controlled test) [17], indicated beneficial effects of nutritional status, hospital stay, clinical outcome, and mortality [17–20]. Other studies failed to demonstrate these [19, 21]. A recent meta-analysis included 41 trials and 3881 participants, the results showed low-quality evidence of nutritional supplementation on complications and mortality [22].
The heterogeneity of included patients and surgical procedures may be a significant limitation to delineate accurate conclusion [22]. The purpose of this study was to retrospectively investigate the effect of oral supplementation of enteral nutritional powder on the complications of geriatric femoral neck fracture with hypoalbuminemia.We analyzed the effect of nutritional supplementation on a particular cohort to decrease heterogeneity