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Frailty status improvement after kidney transplantation

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Abstract

Introduction

Frailty is a clinical syndrome characterized by a decrease in strength, resistance and body physiological condition, making the individual more vulnerable, and increasing his/her risk of dependence and death. Kidney transplant (KT) is currently the best end-stage renal disease therapeutic alternative for certain individuals. Frailty status occurs in approximately 20% of KT patients. Thus, it was evaluated if there would be any change in frailty status level in a population of adult patients on chronic HD after receiving KT.

Material and method

A cross-sectional study was conducted on a population of adult hemodialysis patients (n: 57), with the objective of evaluating if there was a significant change in their clinical frailty score (CFS) after 6 months of KT. For the statistical analysis, the Student’s t-test, and the test of statistical significance between two proportions were applied.

Results

Mean CFS before KT was 4 (vulnerable), and after KT was 3 (robust). CFS value was significantly lower after KT (p value < 0.01).

Conclusion

A significant improvement was found between pre- and post-transplant clinical frailty scores in hemodialysis adult patients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Gustavo Aroca-Martinez

  2. Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Gustavo Aroca-Martinez, Sandra Hernandez-Agudelo, Christian Castro-Hernández, Omar Cabarcas-Barbosa, Henry J. González-Torres, Andrés Cadena-Bonfanti & Carlos G. Musso

  3. Departamento de Nefrología, Clínica de la Costa, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Gustavo Aroca-Martinez, Sandra Hernandez-Agudelo, Christian Castro-Hernández, Omar Cabarcas-Barbosa & Andrés Cadena-Bonfanti

  4. Research Department, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Sergio Adrián Terrasa & Carlos G. Musso

  5. Doctorado en Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia

    Henry J. González-Torres

Authors
  1. Gustavo Aroca-Martinez
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  2. Sandra Hernandez-Agudelo
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  3. Christian Castro-Hernández
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  4. Omar Cabarcas-Barbosa
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  5. Sergio Adrián Terrasa
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  6. Henry J. González-Torres
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  7. Andrés Cadena-Bonfanti
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  8. Carlos G. Musso
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlos G. Musso.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 3 Clinical frailty scale
Full size table

If dementia, the degree of frailty usually corresponds to the degree of dementia.

  • Mild dementia: includes forgetting the details of recent events though still remembering the event itself, repeating the same question/story and social withdrawal

  • Moderate dementia: recent memory is very impaired, even though they seemingly can remember their past life events well. They can do personal care with prompting

  • Severe dementia: they cannot do personal care without help

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Aroca-Martinez, G., Hernandez-Agudelo, S., Castro-Hernández, C. et al. Frailty status improvement after kidney transplantation. Ir J Med Sci 192, 2501–2505 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-022-03264-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-022-03264-8

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