Frailty as a Predictor of Neurosurgical Outcomes in Brain Tumor Patients

Preoperative risk assessment is important, but inexact, in older patients because physiologic reserves are difficult to measure. This also makes an important difference related to brain tumor patients, who may be burdened with systemic disease, alterations in cognition, or affected by other comorbidities. When assessing quality of life for brain tumor patients, having a better predictor of postsurgical outcome would be beneficial in appropriately counseling these patients. Frailty is thought to estimate physiologic reserves, and its use has been found to predict postoperative complications, length of stay, and discharge to a skilled or assisted-living facility in neurosurgical patients. Frailty as an adjunct to preoperative assessment of neurosurgical patients has never been evaluated. This study aims to determine if frailty predicts neurosurgical complications in brain tumor patients and enhances current perioperative risk models.