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Does frailty impact failure-to-rescue in geriatric trauma patients?
Mitsuaki Kojima1, Koji Morishita, Tomohisa Shoko
1From the Emergency and Critical Care Center (M.K., T.S.), Tokyo Women's Medical University Adachi Medical Center, Adachi, Tokyo, Japan; Trauma and Acute Critical Care Medical Center (K.M.), Tokyo Medical and Dental University Hospital, Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan; CECORC-Comparative Effectiveness and Clinical Outcomes Research Center (B.Z., R.C.), Riverside University Health System Medical Center, Moreno Valley, CA; and Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care (TC, LH), Burns, and Acute Care Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of California San Diego Health Sciences, San Diego, CA.
Background:
Failure-to-rescue (FTR), defined as death following a major complication, is a metric of trauma quality. The impact of patient frailty on FTR has not been fully investigated, especially in geriatric trauma patients. This study hypothesized that frailty increased the risk of FTR in geriatric patients with severe injury.
Methods:
A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the TQIP database between 2015 and 2019, including geriatric patients with trauma (age ≥65 years) and an Injury Severity Score (ISS) > 15, who survived ≥48 hours postadmission. Frailty was assessed using the modified 5-item frailty index (mFI). Patients were categorized into frail (mFI ≥ 2) and nonfrail (mFI < 2) groups. Logistic regression analysis and a generalized additive model (GAM) were used to examine the association between FTR and patient frailty after controlling for age, sex, type of injury, trauma center level, ISS, and vital signs on admission.
Results:
Among 52,312 geriatric trauma patients, 34.6% were frail (mean mFI: frail: 2.3 vs. nonfrail: 0.9, p < 0.001). Frail patients were older (age, 77 vs. 74 years, p < 0.001), had a lower ISS (19 vs. 21, p < 0.001), and had a higher incidence of FTR compared with nonfrail patients (8.7% vs. 8.0%, p = 0.006). Logistic regression analysis revealed that frailty was an independent predictor of FTR (odds ratio, 1.32; confidence interval, 1.23-1.44; p < 0.001). The GAM plots showed a linear increase in FTR incidence with increasing mFI after adjusting for confounders.
Conclusion:
This study demonstrated that frailty independently contributes to an increased risk of FTR in geriatric trauma patients. The impact of patient frailty should be considered when using FTR to measure the quality of trauma care.
Level Of Evidence:
Therapeutic/Care Management; Level IV.
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