Routine frailty assessment predicts postoperative complications in elderly patients across surgical disciplines – a retrospective observational study

The preoperative frailty assessment of elderly patients identified pre-frail and frail subgroups to have the highest rate of postoperative complications, regardless of age, surgical discipline, and surgical risk. Significantly increased length of hospitalisation and discharges to care facilities were also observed. Implementation of routine frailty assessments appear to be an effective tool in identifying patients with increased risk. Now future studies are needed to investigate whether patients benefit from optimization of patient counselling, process planning, and risk reduction protocols based on the application of risk stratification.