[Estimate of the costs of osteoporotic fractures of the femur in Spain].

To evaluate the economic impact of osteoporosis, the cost of acute attention to the osteoporotic hip fractures recorded in Barcelona during one year was investigated. The hospital records of 8637 beds (85.64% of the overall number in the city) were reviewed and the cases seen in inhabitants aged 45 years or more during 1984 were included. The cost, days of hospital admission, operations and orthopedic material were recorded. Data from 870 fractures were recovered. During the study period 1358 hip fractures took place in Barcelona, with 1269 +/- 21 (mean +/- SEM) operations, 31219 +/- 1550 (mean +/- SEM) days of hospital admission, and 408 +/- 40 (mean +/- SEM) prostheses. Their attention generated a cost amounting to 662.5 +/- 29.5 (mean +/- SEM) million pesetas. The cost of each fracture was 488200 +/- 331700 (mean +/- SD) pesetas, with a hospital stay of 23 +/- 17 (mean +/- SD) days. This represents, for the whole of Spain, 33298 +/- 1769 (mean +/- SEM) fractures, 31160 +/- 2154 (mean +/- SEM) operations, 767853 +/- 78314 (mean +/- SEM) hospital admission days and 10042 +/- 1530 (mean +/- SEM) prostheses every year. The yearly expenditure is 16295 +/- 1598 (mean +/-SEM) million pesetas (confidence interval of the estimation 95%). Thus, osteoporotic hip fracture results in a significant expenditure in this country. The enormous cost of the attention to osteoporosis and its complications warrants a greater effort for its prevention and care.