LAUSR

Introduction & Objective As life expectancy continues to rise, the prevalence of frailty is also increasing. The idea of frailty and its effect on the operative patient has been previously studied, but not regularly incorporated into routine practice. We present a review on frailty metrics in the literature, validated assessment methods, and simplified screening tools, to better predict and optimize patient outcomes. Methods An online Pubmed search was conducted by 3 authors (TA, TB, MM) for all frailty, frailty assessment, and pre-operative risk assessment. Only English publications were included in the analysis. Full text analysis was then conducted by all three authors to validate the data. Results An abundance of literature was found on frailty. Even though some methods are validated as very effective for assessing frailty, they may be time consuming and require a specialist. various quick screening methods are also present, many already validated, and should be utilized by urologist more regularly. Conclusions Multiple studies demonstrate the relationship between frailty and surgical patients' outcome. Many quick, office based, validated tools to screen for frailty are described, and should be incorporated into our practice in appropriate patients. Future research is now focused on the concept of "prehabilitation" to improve patient frailty status in the pre-operative setting, and consequently operative outcomes.