[Medication rules of famous veteran traditional Chinese medicine doctor in treatment of chronic bronchitis based on implicit structure model].

To explore the medication rules of famous veteran traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctors in treatment of chronic bronchitis, a structured medical record database for famous veteran TCM doctors in modern clinical books was established. First, Lantern 3.1.2(Kongmin light) implicit structure analysis software was used to build an implicit structure model and make an implicit interpretation. Then, SAS 9.1 was adopted to mine herb-herb, herb-symptom and herb-syndrome association rules. Through the mining, 1 274 commonly used herbs for chronic bronchitis were found, including liquorice, bitter almond, pinellia, dried tangerine or orange peel, poria cocos. The medicine types included antiasthmatic medicine, qi-tonifying medicine, and heat-phlegm removing medicine. The medicine tastes included sweet, pungent and bitter. The meridian distributions included lung, spleen and stomach channels. The famous commonly used prescriptions included Xiaoqinglong decoction, Maxing Shigan decoction and Erchen decoction. The 147-herb implicit structure model for the first diagnosis was built to get 44 hidden variables, 88 hidden classes, 7 comprehensive clustering models, 9 dual herb associations, 50 triple herb associations and 89 quadruple associations. Totally 297 medical records for the second diagnosis were compared to obtain 24 herb-symptom associations, which reduced ephedra, bitter almond, pinellia and added poria cocos, atractylodes, dangshen, 20 dual herb associations and 8 triple herb associations. A model for the top 83 symptoms and top 96 herbs in the first diagnosis was built to get 50 hidden variables and 101 hidden classes. The commonly used herbs of famous veteran TCM doctors included bitter almond, pinellia, dried tangerine or orange peel, poria cocos, which feature mild property and sweet favor and enter lung, spleen, kidney meridians; the commonly herbal pairs included atractylodes and poria cocos, asarum, fructus schisandrae and pinellia, as well as poria cocos, dangshen, pinellia and dried tangerine or orange peel. The herb-syndrome associations involved ephedra, bitter almond, cassia twig and scanty sputum, pinellia and external cold and internal fluid syndrome, turbid phlegm obstructing lung syndrome and spleen deficiency syndrome, bitter almond and turbid phlegm obstructing lung syndrome, phlegm-heat accumulated in the lung and wind-cold invading the lung. The implicit structure model can be used to quantify tacit knowledge of TCM, extend to the herb and syndrome level for the first time, and quantify the major, minor and compatible statues of different variables in the same data. This study concluded that the medication rules of famous veteran TCM doctors in treatment of chronic bronchitis have certain reference value for the clinical diagnosis and treatment. The data sources, analysis methods and mining results were relatively reliable and objective, and can provide a reference for rules of other disease treatment based on syndrome differentiation.