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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Cancer

Date Submitted: Dec 11, 2024
Date Accepted: May 29, 2025

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Prevalence of Frailty and Its Predictors Among Patients With Cancer at the Chemotherapy Stage: Systematic Review

Wang T, Jiang J, Song Z, Liu X, Zhong M, Yu C, Zhang R, Duan X

Prevalence of Frailty and Its Predictors Among Patients With Cancer at the Chemotherapy Stage: Systematic Review

JMIR Cancer 2025;11:e69936

DOI: 10.2196/69936

PMID: 40706088

PMCID: 12289293

Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.

Prevalence of frailty and its predictors among cancer patients in chemotherapy stage: A systematic review

  • Tingting Wang; 
  • Jinxia Jiang; 
  • Zihe Song; 
  • Xianliang Liu; 
  • Minhui Zhong; 
  • Chan Yu; 
  • Runa Zhang; 
  • Xia Duan

ABSTRACT

Background:

Chemotherapy can cause physiological, psychological, and even social impairments for patients with cancer. Frailty reduces the efficacy of chemotherapy and increases the toxicity associated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the probability of chemotherapy failure, and adverse outcomes. However, factors affecting chemotherapy-related debilitation in patients with cancer remain to be clarified.

Objective:

Herein, the literature on the factors affecting frailty in patients with malignant tumors during chemotherapy was systematically reviewed, and the main factors affecting frailty were quantitatively analyzed and evaluated through a meta-analysis.

Methods:

A comprehensive systematic search was conducted on CNKI, Wanfang Data, VIP, CMB, MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, EMBase, and other databases for cross-sectional studies, cohort studies, or case-control studies on factors affecting the debility-of-chemotherapy stage in patients with cancer from the database establishment to December 2023. Literature screening, quality evaluation, and data extraction were conducted independently by two authors, and meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.4 and Stata 17.0 software.

Results:

A total of 12 studies were included: 8 cross-sectional studies, 2 longitudinal investigation studies, and 2 cohort studies, including 3,339 patients with cancer and 21 influencing factors. The results of meta-analysis showed a 35% incidence of debilitation during chemotherapy in these patients. Cancer stage, hypoproteinemia, depression, nutritional status, and cancer type were risk factors for debilitation in patients at the chemotherapy stage.

Conclusions:

Cancer stage, hypoproteinemia, old age, depression, nutritional status, and cancer type are factors influencing the incidence of chemotherapy stage frailty in patients with cancer. Clinical Trial: The protocol for this meta-analysis was registered in PROSPERO (No: CRD42024528132).


 Citation

Please cite as:

Wang T, Jiang J, Song Z, Liu X, Zhong M, Yu C, Zhang R, Duan X

Prevalence of Frailty and Its Predictors Among Patients With Cancer at the Chemotherapy Stage: Systematic Review

JMIR Cancer 2025;11:e69936

DOI: 10.2196/69936

PMID: 40706088

PMCID: 12289293

Per the author's request the PDF is not available.