Why the study?
Increasing procedures in older patients with comorbidities, physiological decline, cognitive impairment, and polypharmacy impact perioperative outcomes, requiring multidisciplinary evaluation of frailty.
Does the assessment of frailty and a multidisciplinary approach improve perioperative outcomes in older patients?
Does the assessment of frailty and a multidisciplinary approach improve perioperative outcomes in older patients?
Highlights the importance of frailty assessment and multidisciplinary perioperative care for older patients undergoing surgery or oncological treatments.
Supports preoperative frailty assessment in older patients; leaves open optimal multidisciplinary strategies pending higher-quality trials.
The number of oncology, surgery and anaesthesia procedures in older patients has greatly increased in recent years due to ageing populations. Older patients are typically characterised by physical changes such as comorbidities, decline in physiological activities and cognitive impairment. All these factors, together with polypharmacological therapies, may substantially impact perioperative outcome, quality of recovery and, more in general, quality of life. A comprehensive multidisciplinary approach to perioperative care is thus needed. The assessment of frailty has a central role in the pre-operative evaluation of older patients and, with a multidisciplinary approach. The best surgical procedures and oncologic therapies can be accurately discussed in the pre- and post-operative periods. All clinicians involved in this scenario should be proactive in multidisciplinary care to achieve better outcomes.
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Dottorini et al. (2020) studied this question.
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