Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 20, 2025
The Multiple Sclerosis Performance Test MSPT: An iPad-Based Disability Assessment Tool
Published on: June 30, 2014
A multiple sclerosis disease progression measure based on cumulative disability
Ali Manouchehrinia1, Elaine Kingwell2, Feng Zhu2
1Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital Solna, Stockholm, Sweden.
Background:
Existing severity measurements in multiple sclerosis (MS) are often cross-sectional, making longitudinal comparisons of disease course between individuals difficult.
Objective:
The objective of this study is to create a severity metric that can reliably summarize a patient's disease course.
Methods:
We developed the nARMSS - normalized ARMSS (age-related MS severity score) over follow-up, using the deviation of individual ARMSS scores from the expected value and integrated over the corresponding time period. The nARMSS scales from -5 to +5; a positive value indicates a more severe disease course for a patient when compared to other patients with similar disease timings.
Results:
Using Swedish MS registry data, the nARMSS was tested using data at 2 and 4 years of follow-up to predict the most severe quartile during the subsequent period up to 10 years total follow-up. The metric used was area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic (AUC-ROC). This resulted in measurements of 0.929 and 0.941. In an external Canadian validation cohort, the equivalent AUC-ROCs were 0.901 and 0.908.
Conclusion:
The nARMSS provides a reliable, generalizable and easily measurable metric which makes longitudinal comparison of disease course between individuals feasible.
