High incidence rate of hip fracture in Taiwan: estimated from a nationwide health insurance database

The objective of this study was to describe the incidence rate of hip fracture from 1996 to 2000 in Taiwan, based on an inpatient database of the National Health Insurance Program. A total of 54,199 patients, who had a first-time admission for a diagnosis of hip fracture (ICD9 code 820.0 through 820.9, 820.21, 820.22, and 820.31) on discharge from January 1996 through December 2000 and aged 50 to 100 years, were identified and included in the study. The results showed that the age-specific incidence rates of hip fractures were higher with increasing age in both genders, in an exponential manner after 65 years of age. The incidence was 1.6 times higher and rose about 5 years earlier among women than among men. Thus in these 5 years the age-adjusted incidence rates (95% confidence interval) of hip fracture in Taiwan were 225 (95% CI, 188–263) per 100,000 in men and 505 (95% CI, 423–585) per 100,000 in women (adjusted to US white population of 1989), as compared with US white rate of 187 in men and 535 in women. More than half of the fractures were peritrochanteric, and the recorded cause in most cases was a fall on the same level, from slipping, tripping, or stumbling (ICD9 E885). A total of 37.8% patients had hip hemiarthroplasty, 51.2% had open reduction of fracture with internal fixation, and 10.5% had closed reduction of fracture with internal fixation. We concluded that, using the data from a nationwide health insurance database of Taiwan, we found a high annual incidence rate of hip fracture for both men and women in 5 consecutive years. These incidence rates were higher than other reports on Chinese populations reported in the past 10 years and similar to that of Western countries. With the rapid aging of the populations of Taiwan and other Asian countries in the years to come, our results clearly demonstrated the impact of osteoporosis and hip fracture in this region.