Problem identification: Although frailty is an important parameter in treatment planning and in predicting prognosis and overall survival among patients with hematologic malignancies and recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, frailty assessment tools are not standardized in clinical care settings. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the literature on frailty assessment tools in these patient populations.
Literature search: A systematic search of CINAHL®, Embase®, MEDLINE®, PubMed®, and Web of Science was performed using keywords and controlled vocabulary for the concepts "bone marrow transplants," "hematologic neoplasms," and "frailty."
Data evaluation: Extracted data included study type, diagnosis, transplantation status, frailty tools used, and outcome measures.
Synthesis: A systematic search resulted in 24 studies that met the inclusion criteria. There were significant differences in how various groups define and assess frailty.
Implications for practice: Addressing the lack of standardized frailty assessments will assist healthcare providers to routinely integrate frailty measures in clinical assessments to identify those at risk for poor outcomes, improving personalized care.
Keywords: comorbidity; frailty; hematologic cancers; hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.