Sarcopenia and frailty often co-exist and both have physical function impairment as a core component. Yet despite the urgency of the problem, the development of pharmaceutical therapies for sarcopenia and frailty has lagged, in part because of the lack of consensus definitions for the two conditions. A task force of clinical and basic researchers, leaders from the pharmaceutical and nutritional industries, and representatives from non-profit organizations was established in 2012 with the aim of addressing specific issues affecting research and clinical activities on frailty and sarcopenia. The task force came together on April 22, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts, prior to the International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia Research (ICFSR). The theme of this meeting was to discuss challenges related to drugs designed to target the biology of frailty and sarcopenia as well as more general questions about designing efficient drug trials for these conditions. The present article reports the results of the task force's deliberations based on available evidence and preliminary results of ongoing activities. Overall, the lack of a consensus definition for sarcopenia and frailty was felt as still present and severely limiting advancements in the field. However, agreement appears to be emerging that low mass alone provides insufficient clinical relevance if not combined with muscle weakness and/or functional impairment. In the next future, it will be important to build consensus on clinically meaningful functional outcomes and test/validate them in long-term observational studies.
Keywords: Clinical trial; disability; methodology; physical performance; prevention; skeletal muscle.