BACKGROUND: Recently, the classification of cervical spondylosis is relatively single, lacking the features of Chinese medicine syndrome types in dialectically treating the disease. The previous methods of classifying cervical spondylosis are the summaries of personal experiences without objective base. Therefore, it is significant to investigate syndrome classification using cluster analysis and principal component analysis.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the distribution traits in cervical spondylosis according to different symptom types of traditional Chinese medicine using cluster analysis and principal analysis.
METHODS: The questionnaire was designed according to the clinical manifestations in cervical spondylosis patients. Symptoms, clinical signs, tongue, pulse and other diagnostic messages of 575 patients were collected, to analyze 98 common symptoms using cluster analysis and principal component analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: According to the results of cluster analysis, the disease could be divided into eight categories: dampness-heat energizer, phlegm and wet resistance channels and collaterals, deficiency of qi and blood, deficiency of liver-kidney yin, deficiency of the spleen and kidney-yang, blood stasis and qi stagnation, cold dampness resistance channels and collaterals, deficiency of liver and spleen. We found that most of their disease mechanisms were “state of evil domination”, which was caused by qi stagnation, dampness-heat, cold dampness, phlegm-dampness, blood stasis. Meanwhile, because of the existence of asthenia of healthy qi, the main representation was deficiency of yin, deficiency of yang, deficiency of qi and deficiency of blood. Cluster analysis and principle component analysis are scientific to some extent used in the research of traditional Chinese medical syndrome types.