Infection associated with CIED procedures resulted in substantial incremental admission mortality and long-term mortality that varied with the CIED type and occurred, in part, after discharge. Almost half of the incremental admission cost was for intensive care.

A logistic model predicted nonunion with reasonable accuracy (AUC=0.725). Within the Medicare population, nonunion patients were younger than patients who healed normally. Fracture was associated with increased risk of death within 1year of fracture (p<0.0001) in 14 different bones, confirming that geriatric fracture is a major public health issue. Comorbidities associated with increased risk of nonunion include past or current smoking, alcoholism, obesity or morbid obesity, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, type II diabetes, and/or open fracture (all, multivariate p<0.001). Nonunion prediction requires knowledge of 26 patient variables but predictive accuracy is currently comparable to the Framingham cardiovascular risk prediction.

No abstract

CIED recipients who develop device infection have increased, device-dependent, long-term mortality even after successful treatment of infection. The etiology of this persistent increased risk of death associated with CIED infection is unknown and merits further investigation.

Readmission rates for spinal stenosis decompression were approximately 8% to 10% per year. Fusion at the index procedure did not protect against subsequent readmission. Large databases can inform choice of surgical options by focusing examination on indications for surgery and reasons for readmission. Fusion along with decompression does not seem to impact readmission rates.