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. 2024 May 2;17(7):sfae132.
doi: 10.1093/ckj/sfae132. eCollection 2024 Jul.

Usefulness of the Clinical Frailty Scale in patients with end-stage kidney disease

Kyra Lamberink  1 , Yolande M Vermeeren  1 , Arthur D Moes  1 , Jeanette Mulderij  1 , Paul A Rootjes  1 , Tizza P Zomer  1
Affiliations

Usefulness of the Clinical Frailty Scale in patients with end-stage kidney disease

Kyra Lamberink et al. Clin Kidney J. .

Abstract

Background: The frailty index (FI) is commonly used to estimate frailty in end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients. The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a less time-consuming alternative. We aimed to determine the test performance of the CFS for pre-dialysis and dialysis patients and patients receiving conservative therapy from the Dialysis Centre Apeldoorn.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, pre-dialysis patients and patients receiving conservative therapy from the Dialysis Centre Apeldoorn were included and subjected to frailty assessment. Nephrologists not familiar with the CFS completed the frailty score after medical consultation. The sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve (AUC) of the CFS were determined. The FI was used as the gold standard.

Results: Included were 144 patients, of whom 60 (41.7%) were considered frail according to the FI. The mean age was 67.4 ± 13.5 years and 56 (38.9%) were female. The cut-off point of the CFS for 'vulnerable' (CFS ≥4) had a sensitivity of 63.3%, a specificity of 81.0% and an AUC of 0.72. The cut-off point of the CFS for 'frail' (CFS ≥5) had a sensitivity of 50.0%, a specificity of 91.7% and an AUC of 0.71.

Conclusions: The CFS is a quick and easy-to-use tool for the determination of frailty in ESKD patients with a high prevalence of frailty. Nevertheless, the sensitivity of the CFS in the present study was considered too low to implement into daily clinical practice. The sensitivity might be increased by training nephrologists in the use of the CFS.

Keywords: Clinical Frailty Scale; dialysis; end-stage kidney disease; frailty; frailty index.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Flow chart of study participation.
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Frequency of frailty measured with FI with reference line at 0.25.
Figure 3:
Figure 3:
Frequency of frailty measured with the CFS with reference lines (CFS 4 and CFS 5).
Figure 4:
Figure 4:
Frailty frequency of the CFS compared with the FI.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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