Exploring Frailty in the Intersection of Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer in Older People

Erkihun Amsalu, Ying Zhang, Christopher Harrison, Tan Van Nguyen and Tu Ngoc Nguyen ()
Additional contact information
Erkihun Amsalu: Westmead Applied Research Centre, Sydney Medical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2145, Australia
Ying Zhang: School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2050, Australia
Christopher Harrison: School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2050, Australia
Tan Van Nguyen: Department of Interventional Cardiology, Thong Nhat Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City 70000, Vietnam
Tu Ngoc Nguyen: Westmead Applied Research Centre, Sydney Medical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2145, Australia

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 23, 1-11

Abstract: Advances in cardiovascular therapies and cancer treatments have resulted in longer patient survival. The coexistence of cancer and cardiovascular disease has been recognized as a complex clinical scenario. In addition to cardiovascular disease, older people with cancer are at greater risk of experiencing multimorbidity and geriatric syndromes, such as frailty. In older people, the concurrent presence of cancer and cardiovascular disease increases the risk of mortality, and the presence of frailty can exacerbate their conditions and hinder treatment effectiveness. Given the significant intersection among frailty, cardiovascular disease, and cancer in older people, this paper aims to provide an overview of the current research in this field and identifies gaps in the research to understand the burden and impact of frailty in these populations. While many studies have examined the prevalence and impact of frailty on adverse outcomes in patients with cancer or cardiovascular disease, evidence of frailty in individuals with both conditions is lacking. There is no universally accepted definition of frailty, which leads to inconsistencies in identifying and measuring frailty in older adults with cardiovascular disease and cancer. The frailty index seems to be a preferred frailty definition in studies of patients with cancer, while the frailty phenotype seems to be more commonly used in cardiovascular research. However, differences in how the frailty index was categorized and in how patients were classified as ‘frail’ depending on the cut points may have a negative effect on understanding the impact of frailty in the studied populations. This makes it challenging to compare findings across different studies and limits our understanding of the prevalence and impact of frailty in these populations. Addressing these research gaps will contribute to our understanding of the burden of frailty in older people with cardiovascular disease and cancer, and improve clinical care protocols in this vulnerable population.

Keywords: frailty; cardiovascular disease; cancer; cardio-oncology; multimorbidity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/23/7105/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/23/7105/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:23:p:7105-:d:1286557

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().