A Frailty Index based on clinical data to quantify mortality risk in dogs

Tommaso Banzato,Roberta Di Maggio,Giovanni Franzo,Marco Canevelli,Silvia Burti,Elisa Nicoletto,Matteo Cesari

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-52585-9

Abstract

Frailty is defined as a decline in an organism’s physiological reserves resulting in increased vulnerability to stressors. In humans, a single continuous variable, the so-called Frailty Index (FI), can be obtained by multidimensionally assessing the biological complexity of an ageing organism. Here, we evaluate this variability in dogs and compare it to the data available for humans. In dogs, there was a moderate correlation between age and the FI, and the distribution of the FI increased with age. Deficit accumulation was strongly related to mortality. The effect of age, when combined with the FI, was negligible. No sex-related differences were evident. The FI could be considered in epidemiological studies and/or experimental trials to account for the potential confounding effects of the health status of individual dogs. The age-related deficit accumulation reported in dogs is similar to that demonstrated in humans. Therefore, dogs might represent an excellent model for human aging studies.

Highlights

Frailty is defined as a decline in an organism’s physiological reserves resulting in increased vulnerability to stressors
The quality of veterinary care has markedly increased, reaching, in several fields, the standards of human medicine[1]. Complex diagnostic examinations, such as radiology, ultrasonography, blood testing, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, that were previously available only for human patients are currently commonly performed as part of the routine clinical evaluation of our companion animals
It is noteworthy that in addition to being widely adopted to stratify risk profiles and support decision-making in various fields of human medicine, the Frailty Index (FI) has already been used in laboratory animals, showing robust predictive capacity[8,13,14,15,16]

Summary

Introduction

Frailty is defined as a decline in an organism’s physiological reserves resulting in increased vulnerability to stressors. A single continuous variable, the so-called Frailty Index (FI), can be obtained by multidimensionally assessing the biological complexity of an ageing organism We evaluate this variability in dogs and compare it to the data available for humans. The field of geriatrics is well established, traditional medical models can be inadequate when applied to age-related pathological conditions Paradigms, such as chronological age and individual disease entities, do not fully capture an older person’s clinical/biological complexity, risk profile and clinical needs. It accounts for a wide variability in health outcomes and trajectories among living beings of the same chronological age[6]. The aims of the present study are as follows: 1) to develop a FI in dogs based on routinely collected clinical variables; 2) to assess the accuracy of this newly developed FI in the prediction of short-term mortality; and 3) to compare the results obtained in dogs with the results obtained in humans

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion