Ability of the Short Physical Performance Battery Frailty Index to Predict Mortality and Hospital Readmission in Patients with Liver Cirrhosis

Background/Aims. Unplanned hospitalisation is a marker of poor prognosis and a major fnancial burden in patients with cirrhosis. Frailty-screening tools could determine the risk for unplanned hospital admissions and death. Te study aims to evaluate the bedside frailty-screening tool (Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB)) in prediction of mortality in patients with liver cirrhosis. Methods. One hundred forty-fve patients with liver cirrhosis were recruited from Cairo University Hospital. Clinical assessment and routine laboratory tests were performed, and the SPPB frailty index, Child score, and model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score were calculated on admission. Tese metrics were compared to assess mortality outcomes over the course of 90 days. Results. Te mean age of the patients was 60 ± 7 years, and frailty index score (SD) was 6 ± 3. Te overall 90-day readmission rate was 43.4%, while the overall 90-day mortality rate was 18.6%. SPPB scores difered signifcantly between survivors (4.1 ± 1.4) and nonsurvivors (6.47 ± 2.8) (P value ≤ 0.001) as well as between readmitted patients (7.5 ± 2.9) and patients who were not readmitted (4.5 ± 1.9) (P value ≤ 0.001), while the Child and MELD scores showed no associations with patient outcomes. SPPB performed better with a specifcity of 72.3% and a sensitivity of 72.2% for predicting mortality. Conclusions. SPPB could be a screening tool used to detect frailty and excelled over traditional scores as a predictor of death. A low SPPB frailty score among hospitalised patients with cirrhosis is associated with poor outcomes.