Performance of two frailty screening tools among patients with cancer in Taiwan

Shih Ying Chen, Wen Chi Chou, Yung Chang Lin, Ngan Ming Tsang, Kuo Chen Liao, Chung Hao Lin, Jr Rung Lin, Ya Wen Ho, Woung Ru Tang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is the gold standard for detecting frailty in elderly patients with cancer. Since CGA is time- and resource-consuming, many alternative frailty screening tools have been developed; however, it remains unknown whether these tools are suitable for older and adult patients with cancer. Therefore, we used the data collected for a large longitudinal study to compare the diagnostic performances of two frailty screening tools (Geriatric 8 [G8] and Flemish version of the Triage Risk Screening Tool [fTRST]) to identify frailty risk profile among patients with cancer. Methods: Patients aged ≥20 years with newly diagnosed cancer were enrolled. Frailty screening with G8, fTRST, and CGA were performed before anti-cancer treatment. Diagnostic characteristics obtained using G8 and fTRST were analyzed by C-index, and the validity of G8 and fTRST was also determined. Results: 40.9% of the 755 patients with cancer displayed frailty on CGA. Both G8 and fTRST showed high sensitivity (80.6–88.4%) and negative predictive value (81.0–81.2%). The C-index of G8 was higher than that of fTRST (0.77 vs 0.71, p = .01). Moreover, the best G8 and fTRST cut-off points were ≤13 and ≥ 2, respectively. The validities of G8 and fTRST were also confirmed; however, frailty age differences were not observed in our study. Conclusion: Frailty is a common problem for patients with cancer, and routine frailty screening is essential for both older and adult patients. G8 and fTRST are simple and useful frailty screening tools, while G8 is more suitable than fTRST for Taiwanese patients with cancer.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)361-369
Number of pages9
JournalBiomedical Journal
Volume45
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 04 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Chang Gung University

Keywords

  • Cancer
  • Frailty
  • Performance
  • Screening tools

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