Femoral neck fractures in the aged.

Clinical data were reviewed on 99 patients with 102 fractures of the femoral neck on the Orthopedic Service of the San Diego County General Hospital. All were elderly. Twenty-one were dead within two month of the time the fracture was reduced and 36 within a year. In 14 cases the fracture was impacted or undisplaced; there was only one of these in which the fracture did not unite following treatment, and that was for iatrogenic reasons. Sixty-one per cent of the displaced fractures healed; only 32 per cent of the total number of patients with displaced femoral neck fractures walked again.