Meeting report (part 4b): evaluating muscle function in inflammatory myopathies

Advances in basic experimental as well as clinical research on pathophysiological mechanisms and treatment opportunities of various rheumatoid disease conditions have been complicated or frustrated by issues like how to define a disease (i.e. proper diagnosis) and how to define measurement of treatment response (i.e. which outcome measuers should be targeted and evaluated in trials). In this blog, after putting things in a broader context shortly, I will write what I learned about evaluating disease activity of inflammatory myopathies in daily clinical practise, and to be more precise evaluating muscle functioning. Two standardised examinations are available for that purpose: the MMT-8 and the FI-2.