Elderly patients with trochanteric hip fracture have lower serum Vitamin D levels compared to patients with cervical hip fracture

Hip fracture patients have lower serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels, at the time of their fracture, compared to age-matched controls. Aim of this work was to examine if the admission levels of serum 25(OH)D in patients with hip fracture are associated not only to hip fracture in general but also to the type of hip fracture, i.e., trochanteric vs. cervical. Our hypothesis was based on the fact that in Mediterranean countries trochanteric hip fractures are more common than cervical while the contrary is true for northern European countries. Fifty-three community free elderly Cretan women with an acute low energy hip fracture (29 with trochanteric and 24 with cervical fracture) and 70 community free elderly women without hip fracture were included in this study. Serum PTH, Ca, P and Cre showed no significant difference between the two fracture groups. Women with trochanteric fractures had significantly lower serum 25(OH)D levels compared to those with cervical hip fracture (i.e., 35.9 nmol/l vs 55.2 nmol/l (p = 0.015) while the group of those with cervical hip fracture do not appear to differ from the controls.