Will My Patient Survive an Anastomotic Leak? Predicting Failure to Rescue Using the Modified Frailty Index

Failure to rescue (FTR), or death after major complications, has emerged as a marker of hospital-level quality of care. To evaluate the predictive performance of the ACS-NSQIP modified frailty index (mFI) in determining FTR following an anastomotic leak (AL) after a colectomy for colorectal cancer. Retrospective cohort study. Multicenter interrogation of the 2012–2016 American College of Surgeons (ACS) colectomy procedure targeted National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database. A total of 50,944 patients who underwent colectomy for colorectal cancer. Frailty as measured by: (1) Age, ASA, and emergency status (model 1), (2) Age, ASA, emergency status, and mFI (model 2), (3) ACS-NSQIP mortality prediction (model 3). Primary outcome was FTR after AL. A total of 1755 patients experienced an AL (3.46%) with a FTR rate of 6.44%. The mean age was 65.6 years (95% CI 65.28–65.58 years), median ASA was 3 (IQR 2–3), 51 patients (2.92%) were partially or totally dependent, 366 (20.86%) were diabetic, 105 (5.98%) had a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 32 (1.82%) had a history of congestive heart disease (CHD), and 966 (55.04%) were on hypertensive treatment. The performance of model 1 (AUROC 0.77; 95% CI 0.72–0.81), model 2 (AUROC 0.77; 95% CI 0.73–0.82), and model 3 (AUROC 0.79; 95% CI 0.75–0.83) to predict FTR was not different (p = 0.44). Age and ASA remain the most reliable predictors of failure to rescue anastomotic leak after colectomy for colorectal cancer. Addition of the modified frailty index, or all variables collected by NSQIP, did not significantly improve predictive performance.