Lu Ping-Hsun, Keng Jui-Lin, Kuo Ko-Li, Wang Yu-Fang, Tai Yu-Chih, Kuo Chan-Yen
Department of Chinese Medicine, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, New Taipei, Taiwan.
School of Post-Baccalaureate Chinese Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020 Nov 23;2020:8854772. doi: 10.1155/2020/8854772. eCollection 2020.
Uremic pruritus (UP) is prevalent among patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), which causes severe itching and affects their quality of life. Additionally, patients experience fatigue and depression, and an increased risk of mortality has also been reported. A meta-analysis of 17 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) has indicated that Chinese herbal bath therapy (CHBT) had adjuvant benefits in improving UP in ESRD patients, and previous studies have reported that herb combinations were more useful than treatment with a single herb. Association rule analysis has been used to evaluate potential correlations between herb combinations, and Apriori algorithms are one of the most powerful machine-learning algorithms available for identifying associations within databases. Therefore, we used the Apriori algorithm to analyze association rules of potential core herb combinations for use in CHBT for UP treatment using data from a meta-analysis of 17 RCTs that used CHBT for UP treatment. Data on 43 CHBT herbs were extracted from 17 RCTs included for analysis and we found 19 association rules. The results indicated that the following herb combinations {Chuanxiong, Baijili} ≥ {Dahuang} and {Dahuang, Baijili} ≥ {Chuanxiong} were most strongly associated, implying that these herb combinations represent potential CHBT treatments for UP.
尿毒症瘙痒（UP）在终末期肾病（ESRD）患者中普遍存在，它会导致严重瘙痒并影响患者的生活质量。此外，患者还会出现疲劳和抑郁，并且有报道称其死亡风险也会增加。一项对17项随机对照试验（RCT）的荟萃分析表明，中药药浴疗法（CHBT）在改善ESRD患者的UP方面具有辅助益处，并且先前的研究报告称草药组合比单一草药治疗更有效。关联规则分析已被用于评估草药组合之间的潜在相关性，而Apriori算法是可用于识别数据库内关联的最强大的机器学习算法之一。因此，我们使用Apriori算法，利用17项使用CHBT治疗UP的RCT荟萃分析数据，分析用于CHBT治疗UP的潜在核心草药组合的关联规则。从纳入分析的17项RCT中提取了43种CHBT草药的数据，我们发现了19条关联规则。结果表明，以下草药组合{川芎，白蒺藜}≥{大黄}和{大黄，白蒺藜}≥{川芎}的关联性最强，这意味着这些草药组合代表了治疗UP的潜在CHBT疗法。
