Abstract
Frailty is a state of physical and cognitive decline is between the healthy state and the need for nursing care. Frailty has been reported to occur at a high rate in patients with cancer and is associated with postoperative complications such as delirium, infection, survival, and rehospitalization. In the present study, we investigated the incidence of frailty and surgical outcomes in patients who underwent surgical treatment for gastrointestinal cancer. A total of 201 patients who underwent a preoperative physical assessment at Osaka International Cancer Institute between July and September 2021 were included in this study. J‐CHS index was used to investigate the frequency of frailty and postoperative outcomes. Among the 201 patients, 27 （13％） were frail and 126 （63％） were pre‐frail. Of the 27 frail patients, 22 （81％） were elderly, which was significantly higher than that of the pre‐frail/robust patients （p＝0.004）. The median length of hospital stay was 17 （range 5‐98） days for frail patients, which is significantly longer than that of robust patients （p＜0.001）. Thirteen frail patients （48％） developed postoperative complications, which is higher than pre‐frail patients （n＝36, 29％） and robust patients （n＝6, 13％）. In addition, frailty was an independent risk factor for postoperative complications in a multivariate analysis. These findings suggest that frailty occurs at a high rate among elderly gastrointestinal cancer patients and has an impact on the length of hospital stay and the development of postoperative complications.Frailty, Sarcopenia, Gastrointestinal cancer, Colorectal cancer, Perioperative rehabilitation, and Perioperative nutritional support
