Opioids increase hip fracture risk: a meta-analysis.

The relationship between hip fracture risk and opioid use remains controversial. Thus, we performed a meta-analysis to assess the risk of hip fracture among opioid users. PubMed and EMBASE were searched for studies published from the inception of the databases until June 2015. The information was extracted independently by two teams of authors. When the heterogeneity was significant, the random-effects model was used to calculate the overall pooled risk estimates. Ten studies with 697,011 patients were included in the final meta-analysis. The overall combined relative risk for the use of opioids and hip fracture was 1.54 [95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.34-1.77]. Subgroup analyses revealed sources of heterogeneity, and sensitivity analysis indicated stable results, and no publication bias was observed. This meta-analysis demonstrates that opioids significantly increase the risk of hip fracture.