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Discovery of regularities in the use of herbs in chinese medicine prescriptions

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Abstract

Chinese medicine (CM) is a discipline with its own distinct methodologies and philosophical principles. The main method of treatment in CM is to use herbal prescriptions. Typically, a number of herbs are combined to form a formula and different formulae are prescribed for different patients. Regularities in the mixture of herbs in the prescriptions are important for both clinical treatment and novel patent medicine development. In this study, we analyze CM formula data using latent tree (LT) models. Interesting regularities are discovered. Those regularities are of interest to students of CM as well as pharmaceutical companies that manufacture medicine using Chinese herbs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EMC Research China, Beijing, 100084, China

    Tao Chen  (陈 弢)

  2. School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, 100044, China

    Xue-zhong Zhou  (周雪忠)

  3. Guang’anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100053, China

    Run-shun Zhang  (张润顺)

  4. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    Lian-wen Zhang  (张连文)

Authors
  1. Tao Chen  (陈 弢)
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  2. Xue-zhong Zhou  (周雪忠)
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  3. Run-shun Zhang  (张润顺)
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  4. Lian-wen Zhang  (张连文)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tao Chen  (陈 弢).

Additional information

Supported by Program of Beijing Municipal S&T Commission, China (No. D08050703020803, D08050703020804), China NSFC Project (No. 90709006), National Key Technology R&D Program k (2007BA110B06), and China 973 Project (No. 2011CB505101)

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Chen, T., Zhou, Xz., Zhang, Rs. et al. Discovery of regularities in the use of herbs in chinese medicine prescriptions. Chin. J. Integr. Med. 18, 88–92 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11655-011-0860-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11655-011-0860-6

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