Background For the diagnosis and treatment of the systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), numerous scores and indices already exist with different focal points, which are mostly extensive and time consuming. The MLS is a short newly developed questionnaire consisting out of four items to consider whether it is necessary to adjust current therapy: Occurrence of new lupus-specific symptoms, subjective measurement of quality of life (Qol), change of serological abnormalities and the occurrence of organ damage accrual.

Methods Patients who had at least 3 visits since 2016 in our clinic were able to participate. Spearman-correlation was used to correlate MLS and several other well established scores for disease activity in SLE (SLEDAI, ECLAM, SLICC). Additionally, scores for subjective assessment of mental and physical state were used (FSMC, BDI, WAI) to obtain a preliminary impression applicability and expressiveness. Remission is defined as target in therapy of SLE. According to SLEDAI and current treatment recommendations patients were divided in four groups of disease activity (Remission, Remission on treatment, LLDAS, active disease).

Results It was possible to include 72 SLE patients with 305 visits in the study. 64 (88%) of them were female and 8 patients were male. Average age was 48 (SD ± 13.1) and the media duration of lupus disease was 15.6 years (SD ± 8.7). There was a significant correlation between MLS and ECLAM (p<0.001), WAI (p =0.027) and BDI (p =0.003), whereas the SLEDAI and cSLEDAI just show correlation with BDI (p =0.008), respectively (p =0.042). Additionally, a correlation between MLS and the remission status was found (p<0.001).

Conclusions The MLS is a 10 minute easy to administer questionnaire in clinical routine. To be highlighted is that the MLS considers subjective health parameters, like Qol which might be relevant for disease treatment. Further results will be presented at the conference.