Objective To investigate the primary symptoms of the common syndrome types in chronic gastritis through complex system modeling method,thus to provide evidence for the objectivity of the differentiation of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)syndrome in chronic gastritis.Methods The complex system modeling methods of random forest,mutual information,rough sets,affinity propagation clustering and discriminant analysis were comprehensively used to screen the primary symptoms for the diagnosis of common syndrome types in chronic gastritis,such as syndrome of damp turbidity obstruction in the middle energizer,syndrome of spleen and stomach qi deficiency,syndrome of deficiency-cold in spleen and stomach,syndrome of liver depression and qi stagnation,and syndrome of stagnated heat in liver and stomach.And then the relationship between symptoms and syndromes types,and the relationship between symptoms and symptoms were mined.The diagnostic efficiency of the primary symptoms of chronic gastritis was evaluated by the discriminant analysis interactive validation method and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve(AUC).Results The specific symptoms positively correlated with the syndrome of damp turbidity obstruction in the middle energizer were greasy coating,tooth-marked tongue,thick coating and enlarged tongue,while red tongue,thin coating and yellow coating were the identification symptoms negatively correlated with the syndrome,and their prediction accuracy was 79.2%with the AUC value being 0.868.The specific symptoms positively correlated with the syndrome of spleen and stomach qi deficiency were weakness,white coating,tooth-marked tongue,pale lip,and loose stools,while the identification symptoms negatively correlated with the syndrome were greasy moss and red tongue,and their prediction accuracy was 75.5%with the AUC value being 0.830.The specific symptoms positively correlated with the syndrome of deficiency-cold in spleen and stomach were cold limbs,preference of warmth in the epigastrium,and thin coating,while no identification symptoms negatively correlated with the syndrome,and their predictive accuracy was 79.2%with the AUC value being 0.836.The specific symptoms positively correlated with the syndrome of liver depression and qi stagnation were symptom aggravation due to emotional factors,distention or pain over hypochondriac region and belching,while the identification symptoms negatively correlated with the syndrome were weakness and greasy coating,and their predictive accuracy was 74.1%with the AUC value being 0.818.The specific symptoms positively correlated with the syndrome of stagnated heat in liver and stomach were red tongue,distention or pain over hypochondriac region and red lips,while the identification symptoms negatively correlated with the syndrome were greasy coating,white coating and thick coating,and their predictive accuracy was 79.9%with the AUC value being 0.845.The specific symptoms positively correlated with the common syndrome types in chronic gastritis mainly involved spleen,stomach and liver,and the disease-nature syndrome elements covered damp turbidity,qi deficiency,blood deficiency,cold dampness,yang deficiency,qi stagnation and heat.Conclusion The primary symptoms for the common syndrome types in chronic gastritis screened out through comprehensive application of complex system modeling methods are basically consistent with TCM theories,clinical practices and previous diagnostic criteria.Tongue and lip manifestations account for the largest proportion of the primary symptoms,indicating that tongue diagnosis and lip diagnosis are of great significance for the diagnosis of TCM syndrome types in chronic gastritis.
chronic gastritisdamp turbidity obstruction in the middle energizer syndromespleen and stomach qi deficiency syndromedeficiency-cold in spleen and stomach syndromeliver depression and qi stagnation syndromestagnated heat in liver and stomach syndrome