RESUMO
Effective drugs for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD), a complex chronic lung disease, have long been difficultly determined, while traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) has played a critical effect in the treatment of such disease. A new approach for the prediction based on data analysis by integrating TCM basic theories and modern science is urgently needed apart from clinical experiments. In this study, an efficacy evaluation system of COPD was established based on the multi-target efficacy evaluation system of Chinese medicine to analyze the medication regularity and characteristics, such as efficacies, properties, meridian tropism,and core combinations of Chinese medicines. The characteristics of classical prescriptions in the intervention of COPD were explored from modern pharmacology. The results showed that the Chinese medicines in the classical prescriptions in the treatment of COPD were dominated by heat-clearing, phlegm-resolving, dampness-dispelling, exterior-releasing, deficiency-tonifying, and interior-warming drugs. Among them, dampness-dispelling, interior-warming, and heat-clearing drugs resulted in higher perturbation efficiency in the disease network than some western medicines on the market, suggesting that these drugs possessed better efficacies in the treatment of COPD. In the classic prescriptions, warm-heat drugs were equivalent to cold-cool drugs in number, while the proportion of warm-heat drugs gradually raised with the increase in the perturbation efficiency. Additionally, core combinations in the classical prescriptions,such as heat-clearing/heat-clearing, dampness-dispelling/dampness-dispelling, and phlegm-resolving/heat-clearing, could achieve better efficacy for COPD. The present study preliminarily screened out the efficacies of Chinese medicines in the treatment of COPD based on scientific data through the multi-target efficacy evaluation system to explore the effect of Chinese medicine on COPD from modern pharmacology, explain the mechanism of TCM treatment of lung diseases, and provide references for the development of drugs targeting COPD.