Representation of multimorbidity and frailty in the development and validation of kidney failure prognostic prediction models: a systematic review.

Background: Prognostic models that identify individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD) at greatest risk of developing kidney failure help clinicians to make decisions and deliver precision medicine. It is recognised that people with CKD usually have multiple long-term health conditions (multimorbidity) and often experience frailty. We undertook a systematic review to evaluate the representation and consideration of multimorbidity and frailty within CKD cohorts used to develop and/or validate prognostic models assessing the risk of kidney failure.

Methods: We identified studies that described derivation, validation or update of kidney failure prognostic models in MEDLINE, CINAHL Plus and the Cochrane Library-CENTRAL. The primary outcome was representation of multimorbidity or frailty. The secondary outcome was predictive accuracy of identified models in relation to presence of multimorbidity or frailty.

Results: Ninety-seven studies reporting 121 different kidney failure prognostic models were identified. Two studies reported prevalence of multimorbidity and a single study reported prevalence of frailty. The rates of specific comorbidities were reported in a greater proportion of studies: 67.0% reported baseline data on diabetes, 54.6% reported hypertension and 39.2% reported cardiovascular disease. No studies included frailty in model development, and only one study considered multimorbidity as a predictor variable. No studies assessed model performance in populations in relation to multimorbidity. A single study assessed associations between frailty and the risks of kidney failure and death.

Conclusions: There is a paucity of kidney failure risk prediction models that consider the impact of multimorbidity and/or frailty, resulting in a lack of clear evidence-based practice for multimorbid or frail individuals. These knowledge gaps should be explored to help clinicians know whether these models can be used for CKD patients who experience multimorbidity and/or frailty.

Systematic review registration: This review has been registered on PROSPERO (CRD42022347295).