13 They noted longer postoperative length of hospitalization (on average 1 day) in elderly patients, which is consistent with other reports.
Collectively, this suggests that early analysis of inflammation in excised tissue, or site of injury, is dampened in the entire elderly patient cohort, which is consistent with the systemic cytokine profile detected in patient plasma.
Previous reports have also described higher tacrolimus concentrations in elderly patients [ 37, 41, 42], which is consistent with our findings.
In the elderly population, we found that women were more affected by recurrent injuries, which is consistent with older previously published results, but in contrast to a recently published study from a trauma center in Miami, which found more men among recurrently injured over 65 (Gubler et al. 1996; Allan et al. 2013).
The elderly in this study scored relatively higher on PF compared with the original US validation sample, which is consistent with reports by rural elderly adults that walking is considered one of the easiest activities in their daily lives.
Finally, no significant between-group differences were found in walking performance in our study, which is consistent with previous findings in elderly populations [ 4, 5, 8, 19].
Cancer was a frequent underlying disease in both younger and older patients, but younger patients incurred a higher incidence of haematological malignancies, whereas elderly patients were more likely to present solid tumours, which is consistent with a previous report [ 25].
10 The risk of CV events in this study was associated with the presence of hypertension, which is consistent with another study on the elderly.
Our study found oral health impacts more on mental than physical health which is consistent with findings reported among Taiwanese elderly [ 10].
Three-month survival was significantly decreased in elderly patients compared with adult patients (93% versus 60%; P <0.05), which is consistent with the primary outcome (Additional file 5).
