the quintessence of traditional chinese medicine syndrome and its distribution among advanced cancer patients with constipation中国传统医学的精髓综合征及其分布在晚期癌症患者便秘.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2012, Article ID 739642, 7 pages doi:10.1155/2012/739642 Research Article The Quintessence of Traditional Chinese Medicine: Syndrome and Its Distribution among Advanced Cancer Patients with Constipation Chung-Wah Cheng,1 Annie O. L. Kwok,2 Zhao-Xiang Bian,3 and Doris M. W. Tse4 1 Yan Chai Hospital, Hong Kong Baptist University Clinical Centre for Training and Research in Chinese Medicine (West Kowloon), Kowloon, Hong Kong 2 Department of Medicine Geriatrics, Caritas Medical Centre, Kowloon, Hong Kong 3 Clinical Division, School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong 4 Department of Medicine Geriatrics, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Caritas Medical Centre, Kowloon, Hong Kong Correspondence should be addressed to Zhao-Xiang Bian, bzxiang@.hk and Doris M. W. Tse, mwtse@.hk Received 11 January 2012; Accepted 6 April 2012 Academic Editor: Shi-Bing Su Copyright © 2012 Chung-Wah Cheng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Constipation is a common problem in advanced cancer patients; however, specific clinical guidelines on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome (Zhang ) are not yet available. In this cross-sectional study, the TCM syndromes distribution and their common symptoms and signs among 225 constipated advanced cancer patients were determined. Results showed that 127 patients (56.4%) and 7 patients (3.1%) were in deficient and excessive patterns, respectively, while 91 patients (40.4%) were in deficiency-excess complex. The distribut