Pandit V, et al. - The role of frailty in patients with colon cancer (CC) was evaluated. In CC patient undergoing surgical intervention, frailty status independently predicts adverse outcomes (complications, discharge disposition, and length of stay [LOS]). Age showed no independent link with outcome and had poor correlation with frailty status. To help improve outcomes and discharge planning, pre-operative assessment of frailty in CC patients may be useful for early identifications and risk stratification.

Methods

• From the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database (2011), researchers abstracted national estimates for patients with CC.
• Using a 11 variable CCFI, calculation of frailty was done.
• Stratification of each patient as frail (FL) (mFI ≥ 0.25) and non-frail (Non-FL) was performed.
• In-hospital complications, hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) LOS, discharge disposition, and mortality were assessed as outcome measures, and they performed regression analysis.

Results

• Researchers performed analysis of a total of 53,652 patients with CC who underwent surgery.
• Patients had mean age of 69±19 years; 62% of the patients were males and their mean CCFI was 0.13.
• They identified 34% of patients as frail.
• In-hospital complications were seen in 22.3% patients; mortality rate of 3.2% was noted.
• Frail patients had a higher tendency to have in-hospital complications (p=0.001), longer hospital LOS (p=0.001), and were more likely to be discharged to a facility (p=0.001).
• Frail status was noted having independent association with in-hospital complications (OR [95% CI]: 1.8[1.1–2.9], p=0.035) and adverse discharge disposition (OR [95% CI]: 1.3[1.08–3.5], p=0.043) on regression analysis after controlling for age, gender, type of procedure, hospital status, insurance status.