Purpose: Assessment of frailty can help surgeons predict perioperative risk and guide preoperative counseling. However, current methods are often cumbersome in the clinical setting. We prospectively compared the effectiveness of a rapid picture based Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS-9) assessed by patient and surgeon against reference standard Fried Frailty Index in older patients with pelvic floor conditions.
Materials and methods: We enrolled 71 patients between March 2018 and June 2019. Frailty assessment using CFS-9 (scale ranging from very fit to terminally ill) was performed followed by the Fried Frailty Index, a validated tool of 5 measures (shrinking, physical energy, activity, grip strength, walking speed). Correlations and agreement between Fried Frailty Index and CFS-9 scores from the treating surgeon, a second surgeon (surgeon 2) and patient were analyzed using sensitivity, specificity, area under the curve and Cohen's Kappa.
Results: The patient cohort was mostly female (97.2%), with a mean age (±SD) of 73.0 (±5.9) years and 23.9% were frail using the Fried Frailty Index. Compared to the Fried Frailty Index, CFS-9 scores of the treating surgeon, surgeon 2 and patient had AUC values (95% CI) of 0.86 (0.77-0.86), 0.91 (0.84-0.91) and 0.88 (0.79-0.88), respectively. As assessed by Cohen's Kappa the CFS-9 scores all had substantial (surgeon 2, Kappa 0.66, 95% CI 0.46-0.85 or moderate (all other CFS-9 measures, Kappa 0.44 to 0.58) agreement with the Fried Frailty Index scores.
Conclusions: Rapid and effective validated tools to screen for frailty are needed in the clinical setting. CFS-9 is an excellent predictor of frailty compared to the Fried Frailty Index for patients with pelvic floor conditions.
Keywords: frailty; operative; prolapse; surgical procedures; treatment outcome; urinary incontinence.