ABSTRACT
Objective To observe the incidence of malnutrition, the therapeutic effect of nutritional support and the prognosis of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) under mechanical ventilation (MV) in patients with different traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome types and discuss the relationships between these indicators and the differentiation of cold-heat/deficiency-excess syndrome. Methods One hundred and three patients with COPD and MV admitted to Zhuji Hospital of TCM from September 2015 and July 2017 were enrolled, according to the different TCM syndromes, they were divided into an excess-heat syndrome group 42 cases and an asthenia-cold syndrome group 61 cases, and the differences in nutrition indexes and prognosis between the two groups were compared. Results The acute physiology and chronic health evaluationⅡ (APACHE Ⅱ) score, nutritional risk screening 2002 (NRS2002) score and the incidence of malnutrition in excess-heat syndrome group were significantly lower than those in the asthenia-cold syndrome group, while the body mass index (BMI) in excess-heat syndrome group was obviously higher than that in the asthenia cold syndrome group [APACHE Ⅱ score: 20.1±5.4 vs. 22.0±3.4,NRS2002 score: 5.2±0.6 vs. 6.2±0.8, incidence of malnutrition: 61.9% (26/42) vs. 80.3% (49/61), BMI (kg/m2): 22.6±3.8 vs. 19.9±4.8, all P < 0.05]. The levels of albumin (Alb), prealbumin (PA) and transferrin (TF) of the excess-heat syndrome group were higher than those in the asthenia-cold syndrome group, and the differences between the two groups were statistically significant on the 7th day under MV [Alb (g/L): 36.14±2.97 vs. 34.40±3.37, PA (mg/L): 237.67±28.01 vs. 185.34±30.86, TF (g/L): 2.13±0.38 vs. 1.95±0.12, all P < 0.05]. In the excess-heat syndrome group, the percentage of weaning from MV was higher than that of the asthenia-cold syndrome group [85.7% (36/42) vs. 65.6% (40/61)], the 28-day mortality [14.3% (6/42) vs. 31.1% (19/61)] and ICU stay time (days: 9.21±2.96 vs. 11.13±3.96) were lower than those of the asthenia cold syndrome group (all P < 0.05). Conclusion The analysis of TCM differentiation of cold-heat/deficiency-excess syndrome has a certain reference value to realize the changing rules in nutritional status and prognosis of patients with COPD under mechanical ventilation.