Integrating Frailty into the Kidney Transplant Evaluation

摘要

Purpose of ReviewThis review presents an overview of the clinical syndrome of frailty and its association with kidney transplantation outcomes, recent developments in refining frailty assessment, and considerations for its implementation into kidney transplant evaluation.Recent FindingsRecent studies show that frailty is associated with adverse clinical outcomes before and after kidney transplantation, including decreased likelihood of listing and increased risks of mortality. However, frailty assessment has yet to be fully adopted by transplant centers; a study found that 40.9 of centers reported never assessing frailty at evaluation of kidney transplant candidates. Geriatric transplant experts and kidney transplant candidates agree that frailty is a valid consideration for evaluating candidacy.While frailty is an important consideration for treatment of patients with end-stage renal disease, its use in kidney transplant evaluation remains under-utilized. Future research is necessary to refine the frailty phenotype for effective integration into a kidney transplant context.