Frailty Is a Better Predictor than Age of Mortality and Perioperative Complications after Surgery for Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy: An Analysis of 41,369 Patients from the NSQIP Database 2010-2018.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

The ability of frailty compared to age alone to predict adverse events in the surgical management of Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy (DCM) has not been defined in the literature.

METHODS:

41,369 patients with a diagnosis of DCM undergoing surgery were collected from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) Database 2010-2018. Univariate analysis for each measure of frailty (modified frailty index 11- and 5-point; MFI-11, MFI-5), modified Charlson Co-morbidity index and ASA grade) were calculated for the following outcomes: mortality, major complication, unplanned reoperation, unplanned readmission, length of hospital stay, and discharge to a non-home destination. Multivariable modeling of age and frailty with a base model was performed to define the discriminative ability of each measure.

RESULTS:

Age and frailty have a significant effect on all outcomes, but the MFI-5 has the largest effect size. Increasing frailty correlated significantly with the risk of perioperative adverse events, longer hospital stay, and risk of a non-home discharge destination. Multivariable modeling incorporating MFI-5 with age and the base model had a robust predictive value (0.85). MFI-5 had a high categorical assessment correlation with a MFI-11 of 0.988 (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:

Measures of frailty have a greater effect size and a higher discriminative value to predict adverse events than age alone. MFI-5 categorical assessment is essentially equivalent to the MFI-11 score for DCM patients. A multivariable model using MFI-5 provides an accurate predictive tool that has important clinical applications.

• Authors: Jamie R F Wilson, Jetan H Badhiwala, Ali Moghaddamjou, Albert Yee, Jefferson R Wilson, Michael G Fehlings
• Journal: Journal of clinical medicine (J Clin Med) Vol. 9 Issue 11 (Oct 29 2020) ISSN: 2077-0383 [Print] Switzerland
• PMID: 33137985 (Publication Type: Journal Article)