Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Oct 27, 2015; 7(10): 223-225
Published online Oct 27, 2015. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v7.i10.223
Way forward: Geriatric frailty assessment as risk predictor in gastric cancer surgery
Juul JW Tegels, Jan HMB Stoot
Juul JW Tegels, Jan HMB Stoot, Department of Surgery, Atrium-Orbis Medical Centre, 6130 MB Sittard, The Netherlands
Author contributions: Tegels JJW and Stoot JHMB equally contributed to this work.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jan HMB Stoot, MD, PhD, Department of Surgery, Atrium-Orbis Medical Centre, PO Box 5500, 6130 MB Sittard, The Netherlands. j.stoot@orbisconcern.nl
Telephone: +31-88-4597777 Fax: +31-88-4597975
Received: February 20, 2015
Peer-review started: February 22, 2015
First decision: April 27, 2015
Revised: May 19, 2015
Accepted: August 30, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: October 27, 2015
Processing time: 255 Days and 13.4 Hours
Abstract

In gastric cancer patients chronological and biological age might vary greatly between patients. Age as well as American Society of Anaesthesiologists-physical status classifications are very non-specific and do not adequately predict adverse outcome. Improvements have been made such as the introduction of Charlson Comorbidity Index. Geriatric frailty is probably a better measure for patients resistance to stressors and physiological reserves. An increasing amount of evidence shows that geriatric frailty is a better predictor for adverse outcome after surgery, including gastric cancer surgery. Geriatric frailty can be assessed in a number of ways. Questionnaires such as the Groningen Frailty Indicator provide an ease and low cost method for gauging the presence of frailty in gastric cancer patients. This can then be used to provide a better preoperative risk assessment in these patients and improve decision making.

Keywords: Gastric cancer; Surgery; Geriatric frailty

Core tip: Geriatric frailty assessment is an important way forward in order to provide a better preoperative risk assessment in gastric cancer surgical patients.