Severity score represents disease duration–adjusted mean rank of disability in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients from the reference population. This measure allows one to compare the relative rates of disease progression among patients, patient subgroups, and across epochs, which opens up new question of what accounts for the observed differences in severity, and can be used to assess correlation between disease severity and clinical, radiologic, immunologic, genetic, and environmental variables of interest. Severity score can also prove useful for developing prognostic tools in MS. This article discusses the diverse applications of severity score concept in MS research, and (re)introduces Herbert’s proposal of severity-based MS classification in the context of variability of MS severity.

中文翻译：

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多发性硬化症严重程度评分：概念和应用

严重度评分代表参考人群中多发性硬化症 (MS) 患者的疾病持续时间调整后的平均残疾等级。这一措施允许人们比较患者、患者亚组和跨时期疾病进展的相对速率，这开辟了新的问题，即观察到的严重程度差异的原因，并可用于评估疾病严重程度与临床之间的相关性，感兴趣的放射学、免疫学、遗传和环境变量。严重性评分也可以证明对开发 MS 预后工具很有用。本文讨论了严重性评分概念在 MS 研究中的不同应用，并（重新）介绍了 Herbert 在 MS 严重性变化的背景下基于严重性的 MS 分类的提议。