Progress and prospect of objectivity study on four diagnostic methods in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional diagnosis in TCM implements syndrome differentiation based on visual observation and experience of doctor where diagnosis accuracy is impacted due to restriction in preference and experience accumulation of doctor and current environmental factors and lack of objective indexes, difficult for repeated demonstration. Therefore, objective and digital four-diagnosis and regular differentiation are urgently required in development of TCM. With development of science and technology, study on objective four-diagnosis information acquisition and analysis system is increasingly perfected. (1) The current research on inspection mainly focuses on complexion diagnosis and Tongue diagnosis. The system has set up the standard environment suitable for tongue and face image collection with the guidance of TCM theory and clinic practice and on the basis of multidiscipline technological application such as machine vision and back light module etc. (2) A pulse digitization analyzer on basis of more than 20 years of research results on pulse-tracings has been developed, and established the standard collection method of TCM pulse-tracings and information processing method and classification and interpretation criterion of pulse-tracings. We also underwent TCM clinical application research. (3) We have developed the inquiry collection system on the diagnosis of heart in TCM and generally realized the standard of inquiry collection system on the diagnosis of heart in TCM as well as the completion and standardization of inquiry history records. We have made the research by adopting the method of implicit structure. (4) Currently, we have formulated the sound diagnosis identification form, set up sound diagnosis collection hardware platform and developed the collection software. We have made the research on sound diagnosis with the linear and non-linear method and five-viscera corresponding principles, and we are designing the analysis design; besides, partial analysis parameter- - of software has been used for initial analysis. (5) Multivariate statistical analysis method is the effective tool commonly used in information fusion technology. The topic-based group has applied single-output network (OCON) and multi-output network (ACON) to make the information fusion research of four diagnostic methods. In short, we have taken the solid step forward towards the objectification research of TCM four diagnostic methods, however, there are still a lot of difficult issues for us to overcome and solve. For instance, the intelligent image processing calculation method shall be adopted for improving the tongue and face diagnosis software system, and improving the recognition accuracy rate and efficiency in diagnosis; besides, we have used the new methods such as unstable HHT, independent factor analysis and supporting vector machine etc. to extract the characteristics of biological information so as to acquire more effective trait indexes and improve the accuracy rate of clinical diagnosis on the basis of original signal processing method (the analysis method such as time-domain and frequency domain). Furthermore, the comprehensive intelligent massive database on information from TCM four diagnosis has been set up, and convergence and correlation analysis have been made on information from TCM four diagnosis etc.