Leader: Giuseppe Rengo (UNINA); Other collaborator(s): Benedetta Nacmias (UNIFI); Andrea Giustina (UNISR); Luca Busetto (UNIPD); RTDA PNRR TBA (UNICATT)
The progressive increase in life expectancy is paralleled by a rise in the incidence and clinical/social impacts of frailty. Thus, implementation of tools that may help early diagnosis of frailty and/or identification of those subjects more likely to progress from robust or pre-frail to frail, are urgently needed. Due to the complex pathophysiology underlying frailty and to its multidimensional nature, several biological changes, and a vast number of biomarkers, related to inflammation, oxidative stress, hormonal and metabolic alterations, have been proposed. Therefore, the aim of this task will be to test novel biomarkers that may be useful to support frailty diagnosis and to predict the progression from healthy ageing towards frailty
Brief description of the activities and of the intermediate results: Partner UNINA continued the enrollment of patients in the study “Dysautonomia” that is included in the Programme. A telephone follow-up of the enrolled patients has started in order to collect outcomes (hospitalization and mortality) of the Dysautonomia study. Moreover, in collaboration with WP1 of Spoke3, Partner UNINA started working on harmonizing its own database with the other datasets identified by colleagues working in WP3.
A manuscript on the role of the adipokines as potential biomarkers of cerebral small vessel disease in patients with mild cognitive impairment has been accepted to Frontiers in Endocrinology (Carbone et al., in press).
Partner INRCA has studied risk factors associated with survival in old type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients. In this study, all-cause 5-year mortality has been investigated in a real-world sample of older diabetic patients (age > 70 years) afferent to the outpatient facilities of INRCA hospital (Ancona, Italy). Machine learning approach highlighted that physical performance assessed by SPPB was the most important variable on risk mortality. The results were described in a manuscript submitted to Frontiers of Endocrinology (Montesanto et al., submitted).
Research products of the reported period related to this Task:
Main policy, industrial and scientific implications: Drafting of the paper on HL-EU-Q6 validation for older people.
Partner UNINA: The enrollment of patients in the “Dysautonomia” project is continuing. Furthermore, the collection of follow-up data from previously enrolled patients is also progressing. A literature review has been started in order to implement the list of biomarkers that will be tested to identify prognostic biomarkers for age-related diseases, multimorbidity, frailty and disability. The potential biomarkers identified will be evaluated together with those selected with the other researchers involved in WP3 (NfL, GDF15, FGF21 and RAGE). Furthermore, in order to implement the number of elderly subjects on which to test the biomarkers of age-related diseases, multimorbidity, frailty and disability, we have identified a further dataset of patients with heart failure, a chronic disease with a high prevalence in the elderly.
Within the activities of Task 3.3, Partner UNINA continued the enrollment of subjects to increase the number of patients in the “Dysautonomia” and “MIBG” databases. Furthermore, we continued telephone follow-up of the enrolled patients in order to collect data on outcomes (hospitalization and mortality). For all patients included in both datasets, biological samples and related aliquots have been screened and are available for detection of selected biomarkers. The ELISA kits have been ordered and the detection of biomarkers will begin as soon as the ELISA kits become available.