Degrees of Strength & Frailty — Evaluating Your Overall Health Is Crucial To Treatment Planning
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/ Updated September 16th, 2022

Degrees of Strength & Frailty — Evaluating Your Overall Health Is Crucial To Treatment Planning

Medically Reviewed: Dr. Whitfield Growdon Written by Dr. Amanika Kumar
Mayo Clinic
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"Frailty is this concept in patients who are vulnerable to stressors," says Dr. Amanika Kumar, gynecologic oncologist at the Mayo Clinic.

One of the factors that can contribute to and lead to frailty is age. Women who have cancer can also have frailty. However, Dr. Kumar says that age and cancer alone do not produce frailty in general. Frailty can come from a combination of different factors.

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"We can have a patient who has maybe some heart disease, some renal dysfunction," says Dr. Kumar. "Maybe they do most of activities on their own but there are a few things they need help with and they're kind of plodding along in life doing just fine and yet then they have something like a cancer diagnosis and they need surgery or chemotherapy which is what we deal with and that patient will have a hard time recovering."

When a woman has frailty due to some sort of previous condition, she is at risk to not recover as well as other women would. A woman is considered to be frail if her body is unable to handle the stress of cancer treatment.

"The reason it matters is I want to identify patients who are going to have a hard time recovering from surgery, recovering from chemotherapy so that I can design treatment strategies that are particular to a patient that is frail," says Dr. Kumar.

Dr. Kumar says that age does contribute to frailty, but it is not the only cause. Young women can be considered frail too. Age, however, can help identify the type of treatment a doctor will recommend, according to Dr. Kumar, because it impacts how well a woman may be able to tolerate the more aggressive treatments. Age is one factor to consider when testing for frailty, as is physical ability. And there are a handful of ways to test for it.

"There is no one test," says Dr. Kumar.

Identifying if a woman has frailty is really important because it helps doctors determine the best path of treatment for their patients. "We want to know how they function in life and how well they will tolerate the treatments assigned to them," says Dr. Kumar.

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

Dr. Amanika Kumar is a gynecologic oncologist at the Mayo Clinic. Read More

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