Objectives: Tongue diagnosis is one of the main tools of “Inspection” in the four examinations of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It is used to diagnose disease’s properties and severity based on cold, heat, deficiency, excess, and the exuberance and debilitation of the qi and blood through tongue manifestation.
Traditional tongue diagnosis focuses on examining the tongue surface. The diagnosis of sublingual collateral vessels also plays an essential role in the tongue diagnosis of TCM. Its manifestations are strongly related to blood stasis.
However, its severity in the research of sublingual collateral vessels and blood stasis has not yet been well standardized. The present study tried to set up effective standards for diagnosing sublingual collateral vessels. The sublingual varicose veins and petechiae were divided into four and three subgroups, V1-V4, and P0-2, respectively, based on their severity. As a result, the diagnosis of sublingual collateral vessels was judged objectively. Moreover, it is also necessary to standardize the difference among shooting types of equipment and evaluate physicians.
Methods: Hence, the current study assessed the difference using seven mobile
phones and one monocular camera. Each individual was trained for a week to
interpret the sublingual collateral vessels to determine the degree of consistency.
Results: The results showed that under the premise of compulsory flash, the three physicians who have been well trained in sublingual collateral vessels had no significant differences in the interpretation of the same sublingual collateral vessels with different brands of smartphones and the single-lens camera. In terms of the consistency of performance in sublingual collateral vessels, ten medical students achieved good credibility after a week of education and training. The sublingual varicose vein’s intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.750, and the ICC of petechiae was 0.719.
Conclusions: Therefore, the standardized model established in this study for the severity of sublingual collateral vessels can be used as a reference for future clinical research on sublingual collateral vessels.
【Keywords】Sublingual collateral vessels; Tongue diagnosis; Blood stasis; Sublingual varicose veins; Petechiae
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