Data mining in traditional Chinese medicine product quality review / 中国中药杂志

The traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) enterprises have accumulated a large amount of product quality review(PQR) data. Mining these data can reveal the hidden knowledge in production and helps improve pharmaceutical manufacturing technology. However, there are few studies involving the mining of PQR data and thus enterprises lack the guidance to analyze the data. This study proposed a method to mine the PQR data, which consisted of 4 functional modules: data collection and preprocessing, risk classification of variables, risk evaluation by batches, and the regression analysis of quality. Further, we carried out a case study of the formulation process of a TCM product to illustrate the method. In the case study, the data of 398 batches of products during 2019-2021 were collected, which contained 65 process variables. The risks of variables were classified according to the process performance index. The risk of each batch was analyzed through short-term and long-term evaluation, and the critical variables with the strongest impact on the product quality were identified by partial least square regression. The results showed that 1 variable and 13 batches were of high risk, and the critical process variable was the quality of the intermediates. The proposed method enables enterprises to comprehensively mine the PQR data and helps to enhance the process understanding and improve the quality control.

Urodynamics quality in southwest China: a multicenter random study / 中华泌尿外科杂志

Objective:To retrospectively analyze the urodynamics quality in Southwest China, and find out the main issues of urodynamics quality in Southwest China and try to find out the improvement ways.Methods:In this study, a two-stage sampling method was used.In the first stage, 10 medical institutions in Southwest China were selected by cluster sampling from March to June, 2020.In the second stage, according to the development of UDS in Southwest China, the sample size estimation formula was adopted, and the loss of follow-up rate in reports extraction was considered, the initial sample size was 350. As the workload of UDS in the 10 medical institutions involved in the study was equivalent, 35 urodynamics traces from each medical institution were selected. The initial samples should also meet the inclusion criteria: ①patients with clear medical history and complete clinical data; ②UDS traces were clear; ③UDS system was water filled system; ④age>18, and 150 urodynamic traces were included in the final study. We evaluated the quality of enrolled urodynamics traces, and the quality evaluation standard according to the guidelines established by the International Continence Society (ICS). The evaluation conducted by two independent urologist with more than 10 years working experience. Artifacts were divided into non-technical artifacts: abnormal abdominal pressure changes, urine volume <150 ml when did the uroflow test, and technical artifacts: non-standard zero setting, fail to record all urodynamics parameters, baseline drift, catheter displacement, misjudgment of detrusor physiological contraction and detrusor overactive in voiding phase, misjudgment between detrusor overactive and bladder low compliance in filling phase.Results:non-technical artifacts: 32 cases were found abnormal abdominal pressure changes (21.3%), 21 cases (14.0%) were found when did the uroflow test the urine volume <150 ml, and technical artifacts: Non-standard zero setting in 28 cases (18.7%), fail to record all urodynamics parameters in 8 cases, baseline drift in 16 cases, catheter displacement in 9 cases and misjudgment of detrusor physiological contraction and detrusor overactive in voiding phase in 12 cases, misjudgment between detrusor overactive and bladder low compliance in filling phase in 24 cases (16.0%).Conclusions:At present, the urodynamics quality in Southwest China need to be improved. The main issues were that the operator didn’t obey the basic operation and quality control process, and the operator did not have enough basic knowledge of urodynamics. It can be improved by strictly carry out the operation standard of UDS, identifying and correcting artifacts in time, and promoting the standardized urodynamic training courses.