A retrospective study of the data on 27,370 hospital discharges of
patients who had been admitted to non-federal Maryland hospitals from 1979
through 1988 for a fracture of the proximal part of the femur and who had
been at least sixty-five years old at the time of the fracture showed that
the ratio of trochanteric fractures to fractures of the femoral neck
increased linearly with age in white and black women. For men, this ratio
was stable across age-intervals, being slightly more than one in white men
and less than one in black men. Black patients who had a fracture of the
hip were more likely than white patients to have a subtrochanteric, open,
or femoral neck fracture. The rate of occurrence of fractures of the hip
was highest in white women; the rate decreased successively in white men,
black women, and black men. The higher over-all rate of fractures of the
hip in white patients was disproportionately influenced by the much higher
rate of trochanteric fractures in these patients.