Abstract
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was widely used in the treatment of recurrent respiratory tract infections (RRTIs) in East Asia, but its mechanism was not clear because of its complex prescription rules. This research prospectively collected 100 prescriptions of RRTI children treated with TCM. The characteristics of TCM in prescriptions were described and analyzed, and the rules of prescriptions were analyzed by hierarchical clustering and association rules. The results showed that the principle of RRTI was to pay equal attention to cold and mild, and six new meaningful prescriptions were obtained. Among them, the new prescription composed of Astragali Radix (Huangqi), Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma (Baizhu), Saposhnikoviae Radix (Fangfeng), Angelicae Sinensis Radix (Danggui), and Paeoniae Radix Rubra (Chishao) was an important method to treat RRTI. In order to explore the mechanism of the new prescription, the research obtained the action target of each herb of the core prescription on Integrative Pharmacology-based Research Platform of Traditional Chinese Medicine, TCMIP v2.0. The target genes were enriched by Metascape, and 93 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways were obtained. According to the classification and statistics of KEGG type, it was found that the new prescription mainly intervened in the metabolic pathway dominated by amino acid metabolism. In addition, there were also many interventions in the nervous system-, endocrine system-, and digestive system-related pathways. This study summarized the prescription rule of TCM in the treatment of RRTI, analyzed the mechanism of supplementing deficiency, and provided a new idea for the treatment of RRTI.
Highlights
Recurrent respiratory tract infections (RRTIs) are one of the most common diseases in children and adolescents [1]
Further analysis found that the frequency of cold herbs was less than that of core warm herbs, but there are more kinds of cold herbs than core warm herbs. is was balanced with warm herbs, which did not have as many varieties but were used at a much higher frequency. is meant in RRTI treatment, according to the basic theories of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), it might be necessary to select different combinations of cold herbs according to the clinical situation to play the role of clearing away heat, while the choice of warm herbs would be chosen between several core herbs
We found the relationship between herbs by cluster analysis and obtained 6 effective new prescriptions based on the theory of TCM
Summary
Recurrent respiratory tract infections (RRTIs) are one of the most common diseases in children and adolescents [1]. Data from the World Health Organization showed that RRTI mostly occurs in children under 5 years old, accounting for 10%–30% of all pediatric respiratory infections. E incidence of RRTI rises every year. It was difficult to remove pathogens of children, which leaded to an increased tendency of repeated infection [4]. It could increase the risk of asthma, myocarditis, nephritis, and other diseases [5, 6]. Children with immune deficiency of RRTI could be treated by antibody replacement therapy, but the cost was huge. Erefore, developing safe, effective, and affordable medicine for RRTI was a matter of great urgency RRTI brought psychological and physiological pressures to children and caused heavy burdens to their families and society [8]. erefore, developing safe, effective, and affordable medicine for RRTI was a matter of great urgency
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