Association of Preoperative Diabetes With Postoperative Delirium in Older Patients Undergoing Major Orthopedic Surgery

BACKGROUND:

Postoperative delirium (POD) is a common form of postoperative brain dysfunction, especially in the elderly. However, its risk factors remain largely to be determined. This study aimed to investigate whether (1) preoperative diabetes is associated with POD after elective orthopedic surgery and (2) intraoperative frontal alpha power is a mediator of the association between preoperative diabetes and POD.

METHODS:

This was a prospective matched cohort study of patients aged 60 years or more, with a preoperative diabetes who underwent elective orthopedic surgery. Nondiabetic patients were matched 1:1 to diabetic patients in terms of age, sex, and type of surgery. Primary outcome was occurrence of POD, assessed using the 3-minute Diagnostic Confusion Assessment Method (3D-CAM) once daily from 6 pm to 8 pm during the postoperative days 1–7 or until discharge. Secondary outcome was the severity of POD which was assessed for all participants using the short form of the CAM-Severity. Frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded starting before induction of anesthesia and lasting until discharge from the operating room. Intraoperative alpha power was calculated using multitaper spectral analyses. Mediation analysis was used to estimate the proportion of the association between preoperative diabetes and POD that could be explained by intraoperative alpha power.

RESULTS:

A total of 138 pairs of eligible patients successfully matched 1:1. After enrollment, 6 patients in the diabetes group and 4 patients in the nondiabetes group were excluded due to unavailability of raw EEG data. The final analysis included 132 participants with preoperative diabetes and 134 participants without preoperative diabetes, with a median age of 68 years and 72.6% of patients were female. The incidence of POD was 16.7% (22/132) in patients with preoperative diabetes vs 6.0% (8/134) in patients without preoperative diabetes. Preoperative diabetes was associated with increased odds of POD after adjustment of age, sex, body mass index, education level, hypertension, arrhythmia, coronary heart disease, and history of stroke (odds ratio, 3.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4–8.0; P = .009). The intraoperative alpha power accounted for an estimated 20% (95% CI, 2.6–60%; P = .021) of the association between diabetes and POD.

CONCLUSIONS:

This study suggests that preoperative diabetes is associated with an increased risk of POD in older patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery, and that low intraoperative alpha power partially mediates such association.