Benzodiazepines and Hip Fracture

Abstract

To the Editor.— The article on the risk of hip fracture by Ray et al1raises several questions worthy of further discussion. The abstract and, especially, the press coverage given the study suggest that hip fractures in patients who receive long-acting benzodiazepine are a major public health problem. Approximately 211 000 hip fractures occur in elderly Americans annually.2Study results indicate that, at most, 5.8% of hip fractures occurred in patients who received long-acting benzodiazepines, while 20.6% occurred in patients who received other psychotropic drugs. We are interested in seeing the point prevalence of long-acting benzodiazepine and other psychotropic use in the entire elderly population in Saskatchewan, Canada. We would not be surprised to see that benzodiazepine use is comparable with that among study case subjects, while the use of other psychotropics is far lower than that among study case subjects. A more important issue is that the