Citation

Campbell-Furtick M, Moore BJ, Overton TL, Laureano Phillips J, Simon KJ, Gandhi RR, Duane TM, Shafi S. Am. J. Surg. 2016; 212(4): 781-785.

Affiliation

John Peter Smith Health Network, Research Institute, 1500 S. Main St., Fort Worth, TX 76104, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.amjsurg.2015.12.018

PMID

27038794

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There has been an increasing emphasis on identifying elderly trauma patients. However, definitions based solely on age vary widely, ranging from age 55 to 80 years, hampering optimal trauma management for older patients. The goal of this study was to develop an objective, data-driven definition for "elderly" in trauma care by evaluating mortality risk as a function of age.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 872,861 adult (≥18 years) patients from the National Trauma Data Bank's National Sample Program from 2003 to 2010. The primary outcome was risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality determined using multivariate logistic regression. Contribution of age to mortality was investigated through step-wise regression and percent of R(2) attributable to age. We searched for straight-line trends in mortality rate at each age using the spline function of Statistical Analysis Software.

RESULTS: Statistically significant increases in mortality rate were noted at ages 37, 60, and 78. Age was found to contribute 10% to mortality compared with greater than 80% for Glasgow coma scale and injury severity score combined.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest using age 60 years as a data-driven definition of "elderly" in trauma.

Published by Elsevier Inc.

Language: en