MG-ADL Symptom Scale Would Benefit from Questions on Generalized Weakness, Study Says
MG-ADL, a patient-reported scale commonly used to address symptom severity in myasthenia gravis (MG), has a poor sensitivity for measuring generalized muscle weakness. Researchers suggest that more questions about it be added.
The study, titled “Sensitivity of MG–ADL for generalized weakness in myasthenia gravis,” was published in the journal European Journal of Neurology.
MG‐ADL (Myasthenia Gravis Activities of Daily Living) is a patient-reported, eight-question survey that provides a rapid and easy-to-apply assessment of MG symptom severity.
The survey has commonly been used in clinical trials to measure treatment outcomes over activities of daily living and correlates well with the Quantitative MG (QMG), a reliable physician-reported scale often used in clinical studies.
Overall there is a good match between both scores, but there have been inconsistencies when using one versus the other to measure the effect of treatments on muscle weakness.
One explanation may be that MG-ADL has only three questions asking about general weakness, while QMG contains more items focusing on that symptom. This raises the question of whether MG-ADL is equally sensitive to changes in patient muscle weakness, researchers said.