Neural network analysis of Chinese herbal medicine prescriptions for patients with colorectal cancer.

Neural network analysis of Chinese herbal medicine prescriptions for patients with colorectal cancer. Complement Ther Med. 2019 Feb;42:279-285 Authors: Lin YC, Huang WT, Ou SC, Hung HH, Cheng WZ, Lin SS, Lin HJ, Huang ST Abstract Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an experiential form of medicine with a history dating back thousands of years. The present study aimed to utilize neural network analysis to examine specific prescriptions for colorectal cancer (CRC) in clinical practice to arrive at the most effective prescription strategy. The study analyzed the data of 261 CRC cases recruited from a total of 141,962 cases of renowned veteran TCM doctors collected from datasets of both the DeepMedic software and TCM cancer treatment books. The DeepMedic software was applied to normalize the symptoms/signs and Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) prescriptions using standardized terminologies. Over 20 percent of CRC patients demonstrated symptoms of poor appetite, fatigue, loose stool, and abdominal pain. By analyzing the prescription patterns of CHM, we found that Atractylodes macrocephala (Bai-zhu) and Poria (Fu-ling) were the most commonly prescribed single herbs identified through analysis of medical records, and supported by the neural network analysis; although there was a slight difference in the sequential order. The study revealed an 81.9% degree of similarity of CHM prescriptions between the medical records and the neural network su...
Source: Complementary Therapies in Medicine - Category: Complementary Medicine Authors: Tags: Complement Ther Med Source Type: research