Regional anesthesia can lead to a shorter hospital stay than general anesthesia in hip fracture surgery, new research suggests.

For more than 56,000 adults having a hip repair between 2004 and 2011, using regional versus general anesthesia was not linked to a lower death risk after 30 days, but did generally lead to a shorter hospital stay.

The study results were published in the June 25 issue of JAMA.

At least 30,000 hip fractures occur on an annual basis in the United States. Such fractures may lead to disability or death.

Using regional anesthesia for this type of surgery can reduce the number of postoperative complications.

Of the 56,729 patients in the study, 15,904 were given regional anesthesia and 40,825 were provided with general anesthesia. The researchers also found that using regional anesthesia was linked to nearly a half day shorter length of a hospital stay. A total of 3,032 patients died within 30 days of the surgery.

The study authors said in a statement, “Our findings may have implications for clinical practice and health policy. Regional anesthesia is used as the primary anesthetic technique in a minority of hip fracture surgeries performed in the United States and in other countries, and increasing its use has been proposed as a strategy to improve the quality of hip fracture care. We found an association between greater use of regional anesthesia and a reduction in length of stay after hip fracture; however, we did not find regional anesthesia to be associated with statistically significant differences in mortality.”