Saraiva MD, et al. - Researchers performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies assessing the association of persistent pain as a risk factor for frailty incidence. They searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and clinicaltrials.gov databases from inception to October 2017, to identify the relevant publications. They calculated the pooled relative risk for the association between persistent pain and the incidence of frailty by using random-effects meta-analysis. The analysis included five prospective longitudinal studies with 13,120 participants (46% women, mean age from 59 to 85 years old). Findings revealed that persistent pain conferred risk for the development of frailty.