Impact of hematopoietic cell transplant frailty scale on transplant outcome in adults

This prospective study designs an HCT Frailty Scale to classify alloHCT candidates into groups of frail, pre-frail, and fit, and to be implemented in the first consultation at no additional cost. The present scale is composed of the following eight variables: Clinical Frailty Scale, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, Timed Up and Go Test, Grip Strength, Self-Health Rated, Falls, Albumin, and C-Reactive Protein. The Frailty score of a patient is the weighted sum of scores for each item, with weights assigned according to the hazard ratios of a multivariable Cox proportional hazards model estimated and validated with data on OS as the dependent variable, and the scores of the eight variables as explanatory ones, from 298 adults split into training ( n = 200) and validation ( n = 98) sets. For clinical use, the scale scores were transformed into three categories: scale score ≤1: fit; 15.5 frail. The estimated probabilities of 1-year OS in each group of frailty, were, respectively: 83.7%, 48.5%, and 16.5% ( p < 0.001). In the validation cohort, the respective values were 90.3%, 69.5%, and 46.2% ( p < 0.001). Pending further external validations, the HCT Frailty Scale is a low cost-highly informative prognostic signal of outcomes at the pre-transplant stage.