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Background and Aims Large retrospective studies have clearly established the outcome benefits of spinal anesthesia over general anesthesia in patients having hip fracture surgery. However, recent data from a prospective, randomized study (Neuman et al. NEJM 2021) challenged the benefits of spinal anesthesia with regard to survival advantages, the ability to walk independently, and postoperative dementia. We polled the anesthesia community to investigate whether spinal or general anesthesia is perceived as a preferable choice for patients with hip fractures.

Methods We solicited a reply to the following question on the NYSORA community page: ‘If you were a patient with a hip fracture and if expertise in both spinal and general anesthesia were available, which anesthetic technique would you choose for your own hip fracture surgery?’ The reply options are listed in figure 1.

Results Of 130.000 NYSORA community members, 82% comprised anesthesiology professionals. Of these, 4% of the community members posted a reply (5.200 respondents), figure 1. Most respondents (72%) chose spinal anesthesia over general anesthesia for their own hip fracture repair.

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Abstract #36081 Figure 1

Anesthesiology community preference of general vs. spinal anesthesia for their own hip fracture repair

Conclusions Although the recent outcome study on spinal versus general anesthesia (Neuman et al., NEJM, 2021) challenged the benefits of spinal anesthesia in patients with hip fracture, our poll suggests that anesthesia practitioners would prefer spinal over general anesthesia for their own hip fracture surgery. These results could have been skewed due to the likely larger prevalence of regional anesthesiologists in the NYSORA community.