Introduction: Frailty describes patients who are at an extreme risk of vulnerability to stressors that may lead to adverse clinical outcomes. The impact of frailty on clinical, oncological and survival outcomes in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unclear.

Aim: To determine the anticipated oncological and survival outcomes for patients who are frail when diagnosed and undergo treatment with curative intent for CRC.

Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed as per PRISMA guidelines. Descriptive statistics were used to determine associations between frailty and survival outcomes. The impact of frailty on disease-free and overall survival were expressed as hazard Ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using the time-to-effect generic inverse variance and Mantel-Haenszel method.

Results: Nine studies including 15,555 patients were included, of whom 8.1% were frail (1206/14,831). The mean age was 77.1 years (range: 42-94 years), 61.1% were female (9510/15,555) and mean follow-up was 48.0 months. Overall, frailty was associated with an increased risk of mortality (HR: 2.95, 95% CI: 1.64-5.29, P < 0.001) and worse disease-free survival (HR: 1.80, 95% CI: 1.34-2.41, P < 0.001). Frailty was also associated with an increased risk of mortality at 1-year (HR: 3.70, 95% CI: 1.00-13.66, P = 0.050) and 5-years (HR: 2.79, 95% CI: 1.65-4.71, P < 0.001) follow-up respectively.

Conclusion: Frailty is associated with poorer oncological and survival outcomes in patients diagnosed and treated with curative intent for CRC. CRC multidisciplinary team meetings should incorporate these findings into the management paradigm for these patients and patient counselling should be tailored to include these findings.