Exploring the relationship between North Star Ambulatory Assessment and Health Utilities Index scores in Duchenne muscular dystrophy
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The North Star Ambulatory Assessment (NSAA) documents motor performance in ambulatory individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Health Utilities Index (HUI) scores, reflecting preferences for health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) implications of health states, are commonly estimated within trials. This study sought to characterize the relationship between the NSAA score and utility in DMD. METHODS: Family members serving as proxy respondents for placebo-treated ambulatory individuals with DMD (NCT01254019; BioMarin Pharmaceuticals Inc) completed the HUI and the NSAA (score range, 0-34). Mean change over time on these measures was estimated, and the correlation between changes in NSAA score and a) HUI utility; b) HUI3 ambulation and HUI2 mobility attribute scores, over 48 weeks was calculated. RESULTS: Baseline mean (range) age was 8.0 years (5-16; n = 61) and mean (standard deviation [SD]) scores were 0.87 (0.13; HUI2), 0.82 (0.19; HUI3), and 21.0 (8.1; NSAA). Mean (SD) change over 48 weeks was -0.05 (0.14; HUI2), -0.06 (0.19; HUI3), and -2.9 (4.7; NSAA). Weak positive correlations were observed between baseline NSAA score and HUI utility (HUI2: r = 0.29; HUI3: r = 0.17) and for change over 48 weeks (HUI2: r = 0.16; HUI3: r = 0.15). Stronger correlations were observed between change in NSAA score and the HUI3 ambulation (r = 0.41) and HUI2 mobility (r = 0.41) attributes. CONCLUSIONS: Among ambulatory individuals with DMD, NSAA score is weakly correlated with HUI utility, suggesting that motor performance alone does not fully explain HRQoL. Stronger relationships were observed between HUI ambulation and mobility attributes, and NSAA. Although unidimensional measures like the NSAA are informative for documenting disease-specific health impacts, they may not correlate well with measures of overall health status; requiring use in conjunction with other patient-reported and preference-based outcomes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".