Objective

2

To study the characteristics of tongue manifestations of female patients with menstrual irregularities （MI）.

Methods

2

The patients were recruited from Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine， and 281 MI patients admitted to the reproductive medicine center （MI group） and 213 healthy subjects （control group） were included. The tongue manifestations data were collected by using the TFDA-1 digital tongue inspection instrument. The color indicators included HSI， Lab and YCrCb color spaces such as tongue body （TB）， tongue coating （TC）， hue （H）， brightness （I）， saturation （S）， lightness （L）， red-green axis （a）， yellow-blue axis （b）， luminance （Y）， difference of red signal with brightness value （Cr） and difference of blue signal with brightness value （Cb） values， and the texture indicators were contrast （CON）， angular second moment （ASM）， entropy （ENT）， mean value （MEAN）， and tongue coating index （perAll）. The 281 MI patients were categorized into

qi

（blood） deficiency pattern （63 cases）， kidney deficiency pattern （40 cases）， blood heat pattern （40 cases）， blood stasis pattern （41 cases）， liver constraint pattern （48 cases）， and phlegm damp pattern （49 cases）， and the tongue manifestations of different patterns were analyzed.

Results

2

The tongue color indicators TB-S， TB-Cb， TC-S， and TC-Cb were higher in the MI patients， and TB-H，TB-I，TB-L，TB-b， TB-Y， TC-I，TC-L，and TC-Y were significantly lower than those in the healthy subjects （

P

＜0.05）. The tongue texture indicators TB-ASM and TC-ASM were higher in the MI patients， while the TB-CON， TB-ENT， TB-MEAN， TC-CON， TC-ENT and TC-MEAN were lower than those in the healthy subjects （

P

＜0.05）. There were statistical differences between different TCM patterns in tongue color indicators except for TB-H， TC-H， TC-b and TC-Cb （

P

＜0.05）. Tongue texture indicators and tongue coating index TB-CON and perAll were significantly different among patients with different TCM patterns （

P

＜0.05）.

Conclusion

2

The tongue color of MI patients are more dusky with higher saturation and more delicate texture. The Cr value is highest in patients with blood heat pattern， and the Cb value in patients with blood stasis pattern was higher than that of blood heat pattern and liver constraint pattern. The texture is rougher in phlegm damp pattern patients than that in

qi

（blood） deficiency pattern patients. The coating area in patients with blood stasis pattern and phlegm damp pattern is larger.