Mining the prescription-symptom regularity of TCM for HIV/AIDS based on complex network

摘要

Purpose: According to the theory of symptomatic treatment, to explore the characteristics of symptoms and the principles of TCM herbal treatment in HIV/AIDS population. Method: Extracting clinical case of HIV/AIDS for TCM herbal treatment gathered by pilot projects named the “National Free Treating HIV/AIDS with TCM Program” including 1695 patients with total 12,985 attendances from August 2004 to December 2010. Using complex network methods to explore the features of symptomatic treatment and using multi-layer network to show the relationship between symptoms and TCM herbs of prescription. Result: The main symptoms of HIV/AIDS are fatigue, anorexia, shortness of breath, chest tightness, pruritus, headache, muscle pain, abdominal distension, etc. And the main herbs are radix paeoniae alba, radix codonopsis, astragalus, atractylodes, tuckahoe, liquorice, rhizoma chuanxiong, dried tangerine peel, etc. Conclusion: From the relationship of prescription-symptom, it indicates that the treatment of HIV/AIDS starts from blood tonic, combined with spleen and stomach, digestion dredge, lung and focusing on modulating spleen.