{"title":"Frailty: a common pathway in aging and cancer.","authors":"Lodovico Balducci","doi":"10.1159/000343586","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The construct of frailty is germane to that of aging, but a clinical definition of frailty is still wanted. In the geriatric literature, frailty has been conceived in two different ways. The first one is a threshold beyond which the functional reserve of a person is critically reduced and the tolerance of stress negligible. The second is as a progressive reduction of functional reserve due to a progressive accumulation of deficit. In this construct it may be hard to distinguish frailty from aging. Neither concept has at present a clear application in the management of older cancer patients. Studies are needed to establish whether the construct of frailty proposed by Fried et al. may be predictive of decreased cancer-independent survival and of decreased treatment tolerance in older cancer patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":87437,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary topics in gerontology","volume":"38 ","pages":"61-72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1159/000343586","citationCount":"37","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Interdisciplinary topics in gerontology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1159/000343586","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2013/1/17 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 37
Abstract
The construct of frailty is germane to that of aging, but a clinical definition of frailty is still wanted. In the geriatric literature, frailty has been conceived in two different ways. The first one is a threshold beyond which the functional reserve of a person is critically reduced and the tolerance of stress negligible. The second is as a progressive reduction of functional reserve due to a progressive accumulation of deficit. In this construct it may be hard to distinguish frailty from aging. Neither concept has at present a clear application in the management of older cancer patients. Studies are needed to establish whether the construct of frailty proposed by Fried et al. may be predictive of decreased cancer-independent survival and of decreased treatment tolerance in older cancer patients.