Background
Physical Frailty Phenotype (PFP) is the most used frailty instrument among kidney transplant recipients, classifying patients as pre-frail if they have 1–2 criteria and as frail if they have ≥ 3. However, different definitions of robustness have been used among renal patients, including only those who have 0 criteria, or those with 0–1 criteria. Our aim was to determine the impact of one PFP criterion on transplant outcomes.
Methods
We underwent a retrospective study of 296 kidney transplant recipients who had been evaluated for frailty by PFP at the time of evaluating for transplantation.
Results
Only 30.4% of patients had 0 criteria, and an additional 42.9% showed one PFP criterion. As PFP score increased, a higher percentage of women and cerebrovascular disease were found. Recipients with 0–1 criteria had lower 1 year-mortality after transplant than those with ≥ 2 (1.8% vs. 10.1%), but this difference was already present when we only considered those who scored 0 (mortality 1.1%) and 1 (mortality 2.4%) separately. The multivariable analysis confirmed that one PFP criterion was associated to a higher risk of patient death after kidney transplantation (HR 3.52 [1.03–15.9]).
Conclusions
Listed kidney transplant candidates frequently show only one PFP frailty criterion. This has an independent impact on patient survival after transplantation.
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