• Fubin Liu, Yu Peng, Peng Wang, Yating Qiao, Changyu Si, Xixuan Wang, Ming Zhang, Liangkai Chen, and Fangfang Song.
• Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Key Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Epidemiology, Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of Major Diseases in the Population, Ministry of Education, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Tianjin Medical University, Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin 300060, China.
• Prev Med. 2023 Dec 1; 177: 107742107742.

ObjectiveEvidence regarding the role of physical frailty in cancer-related outcomes is limited. We aimed to examine the association of frailty with cancer incidence and mortality risk.MethodsThis prospective study included 348,144 participants free of cancer at baseline from the UK Biobank. Frailty phenotypes (non-frail, pre-frail, and frail) were constructed from 5 components: weight loss, exhaustion, low physical activity, slow gait speed, and low grip strength. The outcome was incidence and mortality of overall and cite-specific cancers. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate the association of frailty phenotypes with cancer incidence and mortality risk.ResultsA total of 43,304 incident cancer cases and 10,152 cancer deaths were documented during a median of 12.0 years of follow-up. For overall cancer, compared with non-frailty, the incidence risk increased by 4% for pre-frailty and 11% for frailty, and the mortality risk increased by 11% for pre-frailty and 39% for frailty. Frailty phenotypes were also dose-dependently associated with a higher risk of incidence and mortality of some site-specific cancers (including liver and lung), with significant sex differences. We observed a synergetic association of frailty phenotypes and smoking with overall cancer incidence and mortality risk.ConclusionsFrailty phenotypes contributed significantly to a higher risk of overall and some site-specific cancers incidence and mortality in a stepwise manner or within individual categories. Future studies are warranted to emphasize the identification, management and prevention of frailty in the whole population and complements of lifestyle-targeted interventions such as quitting smoking.Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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