The Karnofsky Scores purpose was to allow physicians to evaluate a patient’s ability to survive chemotherapy for cancer.
Formula :
Performance score based on clinician assessment in increments of 10.
Explanation of Result :
The Karnofsky score runs from 100 to 0, where 100 is “perfect” health and 0 is death.
* Please verify all calculations prior to clinical use.
References
- Yates JW, Chalmer B, McKegney FP. Evaluation of patients with advanced cancer using the Karnofsky performance status. Cancer. 1980 Apr 15;45(8):2220-4. PMID: 7370963.
The Karnofsky Performance Status Scale (KPS) was designed to measure the level of patient activity and medical care requirements. It is a general measure of patient independence and has been widely used as a general assessment of patient with cancer. Although there is a long history of use of the KPS for judging cancer patients, its reliability and validity have been assumed without formal investigation. The interrater reliability of the KPS was investigated in two ways, both of which gave evidence of moderately high reliability. The patients evaluated in their home were usually assigned a lower KPS score compared with a similar evaluation at the same time done in the outpatient clinic. Costruct validity of the KPS was demonstrated by stron […]