Predictive values of two frailty screening tools in older patients with solid cancer: a comparison of SAOP2 and G8

// Chiara Russo 1, * , Chiara Giannotti 1, * , Alessio Signori 2 , Michele Cea 1 , Roberto Murialdo 1 , Alberto Ballestrero 1 , Stefano Scabini 3 , Emanuele Romairone 3 , Patrizio Odetti 1 , Alessio Nencioni 1 and Fiammetta Monacelli 1 1 Department of Internal Medicine and Medical Specialties (DIMI), Section of Geriatrics, Genoa, Italy 2 DISSAL, Section of Biostatistics, Department of Health Sciences, University of Genova, Genoa, Italy 3 Hospital Policlinic San Martino, Oncological Surgery and Implantable Systems, Genoa, Italy * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Fiammetta Monacelli, email: fiammetta.monacelli@unige.it Keywords: aging; cancer; screening tool; geriatric assessment; frailty Received: April 19, 2018      Accepted: September 01, 2018      Published: October 12, 2018 ABSTRACT Objectives: Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA), the gold standard for detecting frailty in elderly cancer patients, is time-consuming and hard to apply in routine clinical practice. Here we compared the performance of two screening tools for frailty, G8 and SAOP2 for their accuracy in identifying vulnerable patients. Material and Methods: We tested G8 and SAOP2 in 282 patients aged 65 or older with a diagnosis of solid cancer and candidate to undergo surgical, medical and/or radiotherapy treatment. CGA, including functional and cognitive status, depression, nutrition, comorbidity, social status and quality of life was used as reference. ROC curves were used to compare two screening tools. Results: Mean patient age was 79 years and 54% were female. Colorectal and breast cancer were the most common types cancer (49% and 24%). Impaired CGA, G8, and SAOP2 were found in 62%, 89%, and 94% of the patients, respectively. SAOP2 had a better sensitivity (AUC 0.85, p<0.032) than G8 (AUC 0.79), with higher performance in breast cancer patients (AUC 0.93) and in patients aged 70-80 years (AUC 0.87). Conclusions: G8 and SAOP2 both showed good screening capacity for frailty in the cancer patient population we examined with SAOP2 showing a slightly better performance than G8.