Superior discrimination of the Risk Analysis Index compared with the 5-item modified frailty index in 30-day outcome prediction after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion.

Bowers CA, Varela S, Naftchi AF, Kazim SF, Hall DE, Ng C, Rawanduzy C, Spirollari E, Vazquez S, Das A, Graifman G, Asserson DB, Dominguez JF, Kinon MD, Schmidt MH. Superior discrimination of the Risk Analysis Index compared with the 5-item modified frailty index in 30-day outcome prediction after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. Journal of neurosurgery. Spine. 2023 Oct 1; 39(4):509-519.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper was to compare the predictive ability of the recalibrated Risk Analysis Index (RAI-rev) with the 5-item modified frailty index-5 (mFI-5) for postoperative outcomes of anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). METHODS: This study was performed using data of adult (age > 18 years) ACDF patients obtained from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database during the years 2015-2019. Multivariate modeling and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, including area under the curve/C-statistic calculation with the DeLong test, were performed to evaluate the comparative discriminative ability of the RAI-rev and mFI-5 for 5 postoperative outcomes. RESULTS: Both the RAI-rev and mFI-5 were independent predictors of increased postoperative mortality and morbidity in a cohort of 61,441 ACDF patients. In the ROC analysis for 30-day mortality prediction, C-statistics indicated a significantly better performance of the RAI-rev (C-statistic = 0.855, 95% CI 0.852-0.858) compared with the mFI-5 (C-statistic = 0.684, 95% CI 0.680-0.688) (p < 0.001, DeLong test). The results were similar for postoperative ACDF morbidity, Clavien-Dindo grade IV complications, nonhome discharge, and reoperation, demonstrating the superior discriminative ability of the RAI-rev compared with the mFI-5. CONCLUSIONS: The RAI-rev demonstrates superior discrimination to the mFI-5 in predicting postoperative ACDF mortality and morbidity. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to document frailty as an independent risk factor for postoperative mortality after ACDF. The RAI-rev has conceptual fidelity to the frailty phenotype and may be more useful than the mFI-5 in preoperative ACDF risk stratification. Prospective validation of these findings is necessary, but patients with high RAI-rev scores may benefit from knowing that they might have an increased surgical risk for ACDF morbidity and mortality.