Introduction Hip fractures are serious injuries that occur often and easily in elderly patients although they do not cause major trauma. The elderly are prone to these fractures for 2 main reasons. First, the static and dynamic conditions of the femoral neck, which together with the axis of the shaft form an obtuse angle of 127° on average, called angle of inclination [1, 2]. Second, senile osteoporosis (much more frequent in women than in men), is more frequent in the upper extremity of the femur, diminishing its resistance. The neck of the femur and its base are, therefore, two locus minoris resistentiae, and this explains how an unimportant trauma causes fractures in elderly people. Since life expectancy is increasing, our society is becoming older and more patients are suffering hip fractures and their consequences. Nonunion and avascular necrosis of the femoral head are two main local complications of this fracture. The surgeon J Orthopaed Traumatol (2002) 3:35–40 © Springer-Verlag 2002 First-year mortality and long-term results of hemiarthroplasty for hip fractures in the elderly ORIGINAL J. Boretto () • D. Ferro • H. Torres L. Vázquez • L. Marcos • V. Allende G.J. Allende • G.L. Allende Sanatorio Allende Hipólito Irigoyen 384, Nueva Córdoba ZC 5000 Córdoba, Argentina Tel.: +54-351-4269201 Fax: +54-351-4269254 E-mail: jboretto@hotmail.com J. Boretto D. Ferro H. Torres L. Vázquez L. Marcos V. Allende G.J. Allende G.L. Allende Abstract Hip fractures are injuries that affect not only the joint in an elderly person, but also the patient’s survival. The aim of this study was to asses hemiathroplasty as a treat- ment for these lesions and their com- plications; mortality within the first year after fracture was assessed and functional results were compared with the previous conditions. Between 1 January 1995 and 31 May 2001, we treated 29 patients who suffered hip fracture (2 bilateral). The average age was 80.7 years. The mean follow-up was 23 months. We obtained information by a telephone interview. We compared indepen- dence in daily activities before and after fracture. Moreover we exam- ined the social surroundings in which the patients lived, before and after the fracture. Of the 24 patients available for follow-up, 4 (16.7%) had clinical and surgical complica- tions. Mortality within the first year after fracture was 24.1% (7 patients). With respect to functional results, 47.4% of patients reached a score between 26 and 54 points (fair) in postoperative time. Furthermore, the percentage of patients who needed to live in geriatric institutions after the fracture increased from 15.8% to 42.1%. We consider hemiarthroplas- ty to be a treatment which has a lot of advantages, since it allows the immediate return to daily activities and avoids bedrest complications. However we believe that medical society has to advance more in pre- vention and care of this group of patients due to the high mortality within the first year after fracture, which causes them to lose indepen- dence in daily life and to become dependant on third-party assistance. Key words Hip fractures • Hemiar- throplasty • Mortality • Functional results Received: 15 February 2002 Accepted: 10 May 2002