Thoracic Trauma in the Oldest of the Old: An Analysis of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample

Thoracic trauma (TT) has the second highest mortality rate in the geriatric population. These injuries cause significant morbidity in elderly patients. Little has been done to describe the demographics and mortality of specific injuries in these patients. ICD-9 codes corresponding with thoracic trauma for patients aged >80 years were extracted from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database from 2000 to 2010. Characteristics including gender, race, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), length of stay (LOS), and in-hospital mortality (IHM) were analyzed. For females and males, mean CCI was 4.84 and 4.93, respectively (P < 0.0001), and IHM was 5.49 and 2.44 per cent, respectively (P < 0.0001). For white and non-white patients, mean CCI was 4.88 and 4.84, respectively (P < 0.05), and IHM was 3.5 and 3.19 per cent, respectively. This difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.149). Logistic regression revealed correlation coefficient between CCI and mortality was 0.314 (P < 0.0001). Fitting a regression of CCI on LOS adjusting for gender and race, the adjusted effect was 0.146 (P < 0.0001). LOS was significantly less for patients surviving hospitalization. Males had higher CCI and mortality than females. Although whites had a higher CCI than non-whites, there was no difference in IHM between these two groups.