Development of a health data derived frailty index as a predictor of adverse outcomes in older patients with pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer is a prevalent disease among older adults. Well-selected patients, based on a geriatric assessment for risk stratification, could be good candidates for chemotherapy and/or curative resection. Deficits accumulation frailty indices (FI) utilize readily available clinical data and easily obtained patient-reported information to predict hospitalization and mortality of older individuals. Retrospective data from 440 older adults (median age 76 years) with pancreatic cancer, obtained from electronic health records, was used to develop a FI and its ability to predict mortality and other geriatric and cancer related outcomes was tested. Fatigue (n = 45), infection (n = 40) and neutropenia (n = 36) were the most common registered adverse events of treatment; 153 subjects had no adverse events. The mean FI score was 0.26, 112 subjects were fit (0.0