Symptom network topological features predict the effectiveness of herbal treatment for pediatric cough / 医学前沿

Pediatric cough is a heterogeneous condition in terms of symptoms and the underlying disease mechanisms. Symptom phenotypes hold complicated interactions between each other to form an intricate network structure. This study aims to investigate whether the network structure of pediatric cough symptoms is associated with the prognosis and outcome of patients. A total of 384 cases were derived from the electronic medical records of a highly experienced traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physician. The data were divided into two groups according to the therapeutic effect, namely, an invalid group (group A with 40 cases of poor efficacy) and a valid group (group B with 344 cases of good efficacy). Several well-established analysis methods, namely, statistical test, correlation analysis, and complex network analysis, were used to analyze the data. This study reports that symptom networks of patients with pediatric cough are related to the effectiveness of treatment: a dense network of symptoms is associated with great difficulty in treatment. Interventions with the most different symptoms in the symptom network may have improved therapeutic effects.

Data Mining Analysis on Medication Rule of Professor Ni Zhuying's Treatment of Pediatric Cough Disease / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

This study was aimed to analyze the treatment of pediatric cough disease by Professor Ni Zhuying and to provide clinical guidance for the treatment of pediatric cough disease.A total of 1640 cases of pediatric cough disease treated by Professor Ni Zhuying were selected.All cases were recorded into the structured clinical case acquisition system.Data mining platform was used in the data analysis.And the frequency statistics were used.Complex network analysis system was used to study the core prescription and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) compatibility rules.The comparison of efficiency and the chi-squared test were used to analyze the core drug and the common compatibility.The results showed that when Professor Ni treated pediatric cough disease,the top 12 drugs used herbs were tangerine peel,fried bitter almonds,honey ephedra,fructus trichosanthis peel,radix peucedani,bran fried fructus aurantii,prepared rhizoma pinclliae,radix angelicae dahuricae,scutellaria,houttuynia,ramulus uncariae cum uncis,bran fried bombyx batryticatus.The core prescription results from the complex network system analysis was honey ephedra,fried bitter almonds,bran fried fructus aurantii,radix peucedani,fructus trichosanthis peel,dried tangerine peel,prepared rhizoma pinelliae,radix angelicae dahuricae.The commonly used drugs for compatibility were semen lepidii,rhizoma chuanxiong,berba asari;turmeric,raw rhubarb,periostracum cicadae,cortex lycii,vinegar prepared pericarpium citri reticulatae viride,cortex mori;radix astragali,bran fried rhizoma atractylodis macrocephalae,poria;bran fried medicated leaven,fried hawthorn;bulbusfritillariae thunbergii,radix scrophulariae;earthworm,ramulus euonymi,and etc.The drug efficacy and chi-squared test results showed that the main compatibility of drugs had more effect on the trend of efficacy.It was concluded that professor Ni's treatment of pediatric cough disease was mainly from the sputum,heat,and qi.Attention was paid to individual differences of children with syndrome differentiation.It can provide more reference to the treatment of clinical pediatric cough disease.