The Medical Research Council prion disease rating scale: a new outcome measure for prion disease therapeutic trials developed and validated using systematic observational studies. 
Progress in therapeutics for rare disorders like prion disease is impeded by the lack of validated outcome measures and a paucity of natural history data derived from prospective observational studies.  The first analysis of the U.K. National Prion Monitoring Cohort involved 1337 scheduled clinical assessments and 479 telephone assessments in 437 participants over 373 patient-years of follow-up.  Scale development has included semi-quantitative and qualitative carer interviews, item response modelling (Rasch analysis), inter-rater reliability testing, construct analysis and correlation with several existing scales.  The proposed 20-point Medical Research Council prion disease rating scale assesses domains of cognitive function, speech, mobility, personal care/feeding and continence, according to their relative importance documented by carer interviews.  It is quick and simple to administer, and has been validated for use by doctors and nurses and for use over the telephone, allowing for frequent assessments that capture the rapid change typical of these diseases.  The Medical Research Council Scale correlates highly with widely used cognitive and single item scales, but has substantial advantages over these including minimal floor effects.  Three clear patterns of decline were observed using the scale: fast linear decline, slow linear decline (usually inherited prion disease) and in some patients, decline followed by a prolonged preterminal plateau at very low functional levels.  Rates of decline and progress through milestones measured using the scale vary between sporadic, acquired and inherited prion diseases following clinical expectations.  We have developed and validated a new functionally-oriented outcome measure and propose that future clinical trials in prion disease should collect data compatible with this scale, to allow for combined and comparative analyses.  Such approaches may be advantageous in orphan conditions, where single studies of feasible duration will often struggle to achieve statistical power.