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Objectives to determine the safety and effect of intravenous iron sucrose on functional outcomes, delirium, nosocomial infections and transfusion requirements in older patients with hip fracture. Design single-centre randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Setting and participants orthogeriatric share care service at an academic tertiary care hospital. A total of 253 patients were recruited: 126 patients were assigned to intravenous iron and 127 to placebo. Methods on days 1, 3 and 5 after admission, the iron group received 200 mg Venofer® (iron sucrose) in 100 ml saline and the placebo group 100 ml saline. The primary outcome was absolute functional gain, considered as Barthel index (BI) at discharge minus BI on admission. Secondary outcomes included incidence of postoperative delirium according to the confusion assessment method, proportion of patients recovering prior functional status at 3 months, postoperative transfusion requirements, haemoglobin at 3 months, incidence of nosocomial infections and safety. Results the median participant age was 87 (interquartile range, 82.5–91.5) years. Most patients were female (72.7%), and the median previous BI was 81(59–95). No significant effect of intravenous iron was observed for the primary outcome: the median AFG score was 17.1 points (4.8–23.3) in the intravenous iron group and 16 points (6–26) in the placebo group (P = 0.369). No significant treatment effects were observed for other functional outcomes or secondary end points. Conclusion while we found no impact of intravenous iron sucrose on functional recovery, incidence of postoperative delirium, transfusion requirements, haemoglobin at 3 months, mortality and nosocomial infections rates in older patients with hip fracture, we did find that the intervention was safe.

Patients with different autoimmune inflammatory diseases (AIID) on biological therapy are at risk of pneumococcal disease. Adults with inflammatory arthropathies, connective tissue diseases, psoriasis, or inflammatory bowel disease on biological therapy such as anti-TNFα, rituximab, tocilizumab, abatacept, or anakinra were included in this study. Patients completed a protocol combining the pneumococcal vaccines PCV13 and PPV23. Immune response against pneumococcal serotypes 1, 3, 7F, 14, 19A, and 19F were assessed evaluating functional antibodies by an opsonophagocytosis killing assay (OPKA). In this study, 182 patients with AIID completed the sequential vaccination protocol. Patients on etanercept tended to achieve OPKA titers against a larger number of serotypes than the rest of patients on other biological therapies, while adalimumab was associated to a lower number of serotypes with OPKA titers. Rituximab was not associated with a worse response when compared with the rest of biological agents. Not glucocorticoids, nor synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, interfered with the immune response. OPKA titers against serotype 3 which is one of the most prevalent, was obtained in 44% of patients, increasing up to 58% in those on etanercept. Hence, almost 50% of patients on biological therapy achieved functional antibodies after the administration of a complete pneumococcal vaccination protocol.