Significance of frailty in prognosis after surgery in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND: Frailty is an important consideration for older patients undergoing surgery. We aimed to investigate whether frailty could be a prognostic factor in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who underwent pancreatic resection. METHODS: One hundred and twenty patients who underwent pancreatic resection for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were enrolled. Frailty was defined as a clinical frailty scale score ≥4. Patients were divided into frailty (n = 29) and non-frailty (n=91) groups, and clinicopathological factors were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: The frailty group showed an older age, lower serum albumin concentration, lower prognostic nutritional index, larger tumor diameter, and higher rate of lymph node metastasis than the non-frailty group (p < 0.05). Neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio and modified Glasgow prognostic score tended to be higher in the frailty group. Cancer-specific and disease-free survival rates were significantly poor in the frailty group (p < 0.05). With a multivariate analysis, frailty was an independent prognostic factor of cancer-specific survival. CONCLUSIONS: Frailty can predict the prognosis of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who undergo pancreatic resection.