A Simplified Frailty Index to Predict Outcomes After Radical Cystectomy

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Traditional surgical risk indices are notoriously inaccurate, especially for the elderly, so there has been a trend to evaluate frailty instead. OBJECTIVE: To describe a simplified five-item frailty index for evaluating radical cystectomy outcomes and compare its predictive ability with other risk assessment tools for a total patient cohort and a subgroup of patients aged ≥65yr. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database from 2007 to 2015 was queried for radical cystectomy cases for bladder cancer. A simplified five-item frailty index (sFI) was created based on previously described measures of frailty. OUTCOME MEASUREMENT..