ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Frailty is associated with postoperative morbidity in multiple surgical disciplines. We evaluated the association between frailty and early postoperative outcomes for brain tumor patients using a national database. METHODS: We reviewed the Nationwide Readmissions Database from 2010 to 2014. International Classification of Diseases, ninth revision, codes were used to identify benign and malignant brain tumors treated with surgical resection. Pituitary tumors were excluded. Frailty was assessed using the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Groups frailty indicator tool. Multivariable exact logistic regression was used to conduct analyses assessing the association between frailty and the outcome variables. Statistical significance was defined as P < 0.001. RESULTS: The criteria for frailty were met for 7209 of 87,835 patients (8.2%). After adjustment for patient and hospital factors, frailty was independently associated with in-hospital surgical complications (odds ratio [OR], 1.48; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.37-1.59; P < 0.0001), mental status changes (OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.72-2.09; P < 0.0001), and pulmonary insufficiency (OR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.55-1.96; P < 0.0001). Frailty was associated with an increased length of stay (incident rate ratio, 1.92; 95% CI, 1.87-1.98; P < 0.0001) and nonroutine disposition (OR, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.72-1.97; P < 0.0001). In-hospital mortality was greater for frail patients (2.2% vs. 1.4%; P < 0.0001), but the difference did not achieve significance on multivariate analysis. Frail patients were not more likely to be readmitted. CONCLUSION: Frailty is associated with in-hospital complications and nonroutine disposition after craniotomy for benign and malignant brain tumors. Additional work is needed to identify prehabilitation or in-hospital strategies to improve the care and outcomes of these at-risk patients.