Frailty is Not Associated With Awake Craniotomy Outcome: A Single Institution Experience

Patient frailty has been shown to be a powerful predictor of poor surgical outcome across specialties and may guide patient selection. In awake craniotomy, patient selection is particularly important for completion of intraoperative mapping and to reduce conversion to general anesthesia. We evaluated whether frailty is associated with unsuccessful awake craniotomy or poor outcome.

We performed a single-center retrospective study of adult patients with tumor, epilepsy, and vascular pathologies that underwent first-time awake craniotomy between 2018 and 2024. The Modified Frailty Index-11 (mFI-11) was calculated for each patient, and frailty was defined as a mFI-11 ≥2. We evaluated the association of frailty with unsuccessful awake craniotomy and postoperative complications.

In total, 143 patients met inclusion criteria. There were 39 (27%) frail patients (mFI-11 ≥ 2) and 104 (73%) nonfrail patients (mFI-11 <2). Frail patients were significantly older ( P < .001), had a higher American Society of Anesthesia classification ( P = .015), higher rates of obstructive sleep apnea ( P = .001), higher body mass index ( P = .035), and glioblastoma ( P < .001) compared with the nonfrail group. Frail patients had longer length of stay ( P = .008) and had more than 2 times increased odds of discharge to skilled nursing facility or inpatient rehab facility ( P = .01). Frail patients had no significant increased risk of conversion to general anesthesia or incomplete mapping, intraoperative deficit, 24-hour postoperative deficit, 30-day readmission, or residual neurologic deficit at follow-up.

In our cohort, frailty was associated with higher anesthetic risk and longer length of stay but was not significantly associated with unsuccessful awake craniotomy, postoperative complications, or neurologic outcome.