NYMC Faculty Publications
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
Author Type(s)
Student, Resident/Fellow, Faculty
DOI
10.3171/2023.5.SPINE221020
Journal Title
Journal of Neurosurgery. Spine
First Page
509
Last Page
519
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2023
Department
Neurosurgery
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.
Recommended Citation
Bowers, C. A., Varela, S., Naftchi, A. F., Kazim, S. F., Hall, D. E., Ng, C., Rawanduzy, C., Spirollari, E., Vazquez, S., Das, A., Graifman, G., Asserson, D. B., Dominguez, J. F., Kinon, M. D., & Schmidt, M. H. (2023). 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, 39 (4), 509-519. https://doi.org/10.3171/2023.5.SPINE221020
