Clinical significance of preoperative oral frailty and malnutrition in predicting the surgical outcomes of Gastrointestinal cancers.

PURPOSE: In this study, we aimed to investigate the association between preoperative oral frailty, nutritional status, and postoperative complications in patients who underwent curative gastrointestinal (GI) cancer surgery.

METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 181 patients who underwent curative resection for GI malignancies between April 2022 and March 2024. Oral frailty and nutritional status were assessed using the Oral Frailty Index-8 (OFI-8) and Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF) through structured, nurse-administered preoperative questionnaires. Complications were defined as Clavien-Dindo grade ≥ 2. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify independent risk factors.

RESULTS: Complications occurred in 30.9% of the participants. Participants with both oral frailty (OFI-8 ≥ 4) and a risk of malnutrition (MNA-SF ≤ 11) had the highest complication rate (55.2%). In the multivariate analysis, the combination of these two factors was an independent predictor of postoperative complications (odds ratio: 3.16, p = 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative oral frailty and malnutrition are significant predictors of postoperative complications in patients with GI cancers. A simple composite score combining OFI-8 and MNA-SF may improve risk stratification and inform multidisciplinary preoperative care strategies to optimize surgical outcomes.