Background. The number of publications evaluating economic and social aspects of the treatment of proximal femur fractures increased steadily in the last 20 years in the foreign literature. Due to the absence of similar studies in the domestic literature the authors decided to investigate this issue in the Czech Republic and to present outcomes. The aim of the presented study is to inform about the costs of treatment of patients with proximal femur fractures in an orthopaedic department and estimate the costs of such treatment on a nationwide scale. Methods and Results. A detailed follow up of 244 patients treated for a proximal femur fracture was carried out at the Orthopaedic Clinic of the 3rd Medical Faculty and Faculty Hospital, Královské Vinohrady in 1997, including economic aspects and the fate of patients after their discharge from the hospital in the course of one year after their injury or surgery. The average cost of primary treatment of a patient in this group amounted to 38 000 Kč, on a nation-wide scale this sum totalled 29 000. The obtained results were compared with national data acquired from the Institute of Health Care Informations and Statistics and from the General Health Insurance Company. The monitored group accounted for 2 % of the national group of patients with this diagnosis. Conclusions. Exact data on the costs of primary treatment of patients with a proximal femur fracture were obtained only in the monitored group of our patients, in 1997 these costs amounted to 9 389 848 CZK. The costs in the whole Czech Republic may be only estimated at approximately 450 milion CZK.

        Key words: proximal femur fractures, economic aspects of treatment.