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Published on: August 1, 2019
Evaluation of the Clinical Functioning Information Tool (ClinFIT) in Colorectal Surgical Prehabilitation: A
Guntitat Rujites1,2, Mengzhe Yang1,2, Bhasker Amatya3
1Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
Objective:
To evaluate the construct validity and clinical associations of the Clinical Functioning Information Tool (ClinFIT) with routinely collected preoperative risk and functional capacity measures in a colorectal cancer prehabilitation cohort.
Design:
Prospective observational study of routinely collected prehabilitation clinic data.
Methods:
Adults with colorectal cancer at a tertiary cancer centre were assessed in the prehabilitation clinic using validated tools and anaesthetic and surgical risk indices, including ClinFIT, Community Integration Questionnaire-Revised (CIQ-R), prehabilitation multidisciplinary risk ratings, functional capacity and cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET)-derived risk category, nutrition screening and socioeconomic indices. Associations were examined using Spearman's rank correlations.
Results:
Participants (n = 64, mean age: 60.8±13.5 years, 54.7% male) had a median acute length of stay (LoS) of 15 days (IQR: 10-20.5). Higher ClinFIT scores moderately correlated with higher American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status (p <0.001), CPET physiological vulnerability/risk (p =0.013), and prehabilitation multidisciplinary risk ratings (p <0.001). ClinFIT showed strong inverse correlations with self-reported functional capacity on the Duke Activity Status Index (p <0.001) and participation (CIQ-R total score) (p <0.001). ClinFIT did not correlate significantly with LoS, procedure-focused surgical risk indices, nutrition screening, or socioeconomic disadvantage.
Conclusion:
ClinFIT showed strong associations with participation, functional capacity, and selected preoperative vulnerability measures in this colorectal cancer prehabilitation cohort. These findings support its potential role as a multidimensional screening and assessment tool from a rehabilitation perspective. Further work should examine whether ClinFIT provides clinically useful information beyond existing preoperative measures and supports its practical use in preoperative oncology care.
