Characteristics. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus TCM Syndrome

In this article, the focus is on the discussion and analysis of the current status of TCM Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) symptom through statistic analysis and assessment of the relevant papers published since 1982. TCM symptoms of SLE include mainly types of yin deficiency with internal heat, hepatic-kidney yin deficiency, spleen-kidney yang deficiency, heat toxin syndrome, deficiency of both qi and yin, and wind-damp-heat arthralgia. Based on literary research, we investigated 206 patients with SLE and observed different TCM symptom types and characteristics in the process of occurrence and development of SLE using clinical epidemiology and cluster analysis methods. The aim of our study was to better understand how to effectively prevent and treat this disease through the exploration of the etiopathogenisis and pathogenesis, summarizing TCM characteristics of symptom complex, and analyzing the evolution of the symptoms. The data showed that kidney-yang deficiency, essence changed into Qi barrier was the basic pathogenesis of SLE, and external evil invasion was an important pathogenic factor of this disease. There were seven basic types of SLE symptoms, including yang deficiency with congealing cold, wind-damp-heat arthralgia, heat toxin syndrome, yin deficiency with internal heat, hepatic-kidney yin deficiency, spleen-kidney yang deficiency, and deficiency of both yang and yin. The clinical study found that yang deficiency with congealing cold syndrome occurred in early-stage or untypical SLE while pattern of heat toxin syndrome appeared in acute-stage SLE. Yin deficiency with internal heat syndrome was the most common pathological change and syndrome of SLE. Based on the result of analysis of the syndromes, the fundamental therapeutic principle of SLE was "warming original qi and regulating essence-qi". Although there were different symptoms occurring in different stages of SLE, yang deficiency symptom was a main fundamental aspect of SLE, and other symptoms were incidental aspects. So, according to the principle of "treating fundamental aspect in an urgent case, treating incidental aspects in a chronic case", patients with SLE in early-stages were treated by "warming yang", and those in stable stages were treated by "improving yang deficiency". Hence, we suggest that the TCM name of SLE be known as "bone-muscle toxin arthralgia"...