OBJECTIVE

To explore the diagnostic value of 75 commonly used clinical laboratory markers for differentiation of traditional Chinese medicine syndromes such as liver and gallbladder damp-heat and liver depression and spleen deficiency in patients with chronic hepatitis B.

METHODS

A total of 422 patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) were enrolled, including 300 patients with damp-heat in liver and gallbladder syndrome, and 122 patients with liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome. Seventy-five commonly used clinical markers were selected, including liver and kidney function, clotting function, the quantitative detection of hepatic B virus (HBV) markers, HBV-DNA, blood count, hormones levels, cellular immunity indicators, humoral immunity indicators, lipid panel, protein electrophoresis, alpha-fetoprotein and liver fibrosis indicators. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to detect the diagnostic efficiency of single differential indicators, and stepwise discriminant analysis model was used to explore the discrimination efficiency of differential indices between two TCM syndromes in CHB.

RESULTS

The differential indices between two CHB Chinese syndromes were albumin, prothrombin time, immunoglobulin A, immunoglobulin M, blood urea nitrogen, blood uric acid, basophils, basophil percentage and mean platelet volume. The area under ROC curve (AUC) of these indices was between 0.42 and 0.62, and the total false positive rate of own validation of stepwise discriminant analysis model, which was established by differential indices combination, was 35.3%, and the jackknife total error rate was 35.3%.

CONCLUSION

Neither single differential index nor multiple differential indices determinant models provided appropriate determination of the TCM syndromes of patients with chronic hepatitis B, suggesting that clinical indicators have limited value in determining traditional Chinese medicine syndromes.