Preoperative cardiac stress tests in hip fracture patients lead to unnecessary surgical delays and prolonged hospital stays, according to Mayo Clinic researchers.
Preoperative cardiac stress tests in hip fracture patients lead to unnecessary surgical delays and prolonged hospital stays, according to Mayo Clinic researchers.
Dr. Stephen Sems and colleagues in Rochester, MN, retrospectively looked at 1010 proximal femur fractures in 973 patients treated between 2001 and 2006. Fifty-four patients underwent preoperative cardiac stress testing with either dobutamine stress echocardiography or sestamibi.
Researchers found no significant difference in mortality rates between the patients who underwent stress testing and those who did not. However, cardiac screening did affect the average time to surgery (2.76 days for patients with stress test versus 1.41 days without, p
