Abstract
Epidemiological data about pelvic fractures are limited. Until today, most studies only analyzed inpatient data. The purpose of this study was to estimate incidence rates of pelvic fractures in the German population aged 60 years or older, based on outpatient and inpatient data. We conducted a retrospective population-based observational study based on routine data from a large health insurance company in Germany. Age and sex-specific incidence rates of first fractures between 2008 and 2011 were calculated. We also standardized incidence rates with respect to age and sex in the German population. Multiple Poisson regression models were used to evaluate the association between the risk of first pelvic fracture as outcome and sex, age, calendar year and region as independent variables. The total number of patients with a first pelvic fracture corresponded to 8,041 and during the study period 5,978 insured persons needed inpatient treatment. Overall, the standardized incidence rate of all first pelvic fractures was 22.4 [95% CI 22.0–22.9] per 10,000 person-years, and the standardized incidence rate of inpatient treated fractures 16.5 [16.1–16.9]. Our adjusted regression analysis confirmed a significant sex (RR 2.38 [2.23–2.55], p < 0.001, men as reference) and age effect (higher risk with increasing age, p < 0.001) on first fracture risk. We found a slight association between calendar year (higher risk in later years compared to 2008, p = 0.0162) and first fracture risk and a further significant association with region (RR 0.92 [0.87–0.98], p = 0.006, Westfalen-Lippe as reference). The observed incidences are considerably higher than incidences described in the international literature, even if only inpatient treated pelvic fractures are regarded. Besides which, non-inclusion of outpatient data means that a relevant proportion of pelvic fractures are not taken into account. Prevention of low energy trauma among older people remains an important issue.
Highlights
Pelvic fractures are one of the main results of low energy trauma such as falls, in older individuals [1,2,3,4]
The aim of this study was to estimate incidence rates of pelvic fractures in the German population aged 60 years or older based on outpatient and inpatient data from a statutory health insurance
We further evaluated the association between the risk of first pelvic fracture as the dependent variable and sex, age, calendar year and region as independent variables
Summary
Pelvic fractures are one of the main results of low energy trauma such as falls, in older individuals [1,2,3,4]. Low energy fractures are assumed to affect a growing number of individuals and an increase of pelvic fracture incidences has already been reported [3, 6,7,8,9,10]. Most of the available studies have focused on inpatient data, e.g. hospital admission or discharge diagnoses, but it can be assumed that a significant proportion of individuals with pelvic fracture are treated as outpatients [12, 24, 25]. The aim of this study was to estimate incidence rates of pelvic fractures in the German population aged 60 years or older based on outpatient and inpatient data from a statutory health insurance. We further evaluated the association between the risk of first pelvic fracture as the dependent variable and sex, age, calendar year and region as independent variables
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