Objective

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To construct a quantitative differentiation model of traditional Chinese medicine （TCM） syndromes by taking primary osteoporosis （POP） with kidney

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deficiency syndrome as an example， and to provide methodological reference for the standardization of syndrome differentiation.

Methods

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High-frequency clinical features of POP were screened by descriptive statistical analysis， and strong association features of POP were obtained by association rule algorithm. On this basis， a latent structure （latent tree） model was established through latent structure analysis， and the implicit and explicit variables （features） related to POP with kidney

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deficiency syndrome were comprehensively clustered， and the clustering results were interpreted by the indexes of mutual information and cumulative information coverage， to explore the primary and secondary symptoms， and to deduce the categories of POP with kidney

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deficiency syndrome based on the probability of the features appearing in the various latent categories. Based on the categories， the clinical feature scores and identification thresholds were calculated， and the syndrome differentiation model of POP with kidney

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deficiency was initially constructed by combining the comprehensive judgment rules. Finally， the results of TCM professionals' judgment were used as the gold standard to further evaluate the effectiveness of the model in assisting the syndrome differentiation.

Results

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The 32 features strongly associated with POP were obtained， and the Bayes information critedon score of the further constructed latent tree model was -15291.93. Based on the mutual information and the cumulative information coverage， the main symptoms of POP with kidney

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deficiency syndrome were bone weakness， fatigue， pale tongue， clear urine， frequent nocturnal urination， cold limbs， thin pulse， white coating， and secondary symptoms were weakness， loss of libido， loose stool， frequent urination， lumbar and knee weakness， and fear of cold. From the probability of the occurrence of each clinical feature in different latent categories of POP with kidney

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deficiency syndrome， the state was introduced as S0 category （none/mild kidney

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syndrome）/ S1 category （moderate kidney

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syndrome）/ S2 category （severe kidney

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syndrome）. Optimizing the preliminary rules of state identification and refining the state of S1 category， the results showed that among 970 patients with POP， there were 520 patients having no/mild kidney

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deficiency syndrome， 224 patients with moderate to mild kidney

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deficiency syndrome， 81 patients with moderate to severe kidney

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deficiency syndrome， and 145 patients with severe kidney

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deficiency syndrome. During the evaluation and validation process， the correct rate of the model assessment index was 0.8835， while the sensitivity was 0.7181， and the specificity was 0.9437.

Conclusion

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Combined with the latent structure analysis of the association rule， the syndrome differentiation model for POP with kidney

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deficiency could be constructed， and the model shows a good quantitative identification effect， which can provide methodological supports for clinicians to improve the efficiency and accuracy of TCM diagnosis.