Creating a Diagnostic Assistance System for Diseases in Kampo Medicine

Abstract

The aim of this study was to propose a method to assess images of the tongue captured using a polarized light camera for diagnostic use in Kampo medicine. Glossy and non-glossy images of the tongue were captured simultaneously using a polarizing camera and a polarizing plate. Data augmentation was performed by modulating the color and gloss, resulting in an increase in the number of images from 11 to 275. To create a data set, the values for which diseases were evaluated by Kampo doctors for all tongue images were taken as the correct values and combined with the features extracted from the tongue images. Using this data set, we constructed a diagnostic support module to evaluate diseases. The resulting mean absolute error of the assessment was 0.44 for qi deficiency, 0.42 for blood deficiency, 0.33 for blood stagnation, 0.36 for yin deficiency, and 0.55 for fluid stagnation, suggesting that the diagnostic assistance module was accurate, and our proposed learning and data augmentation methods were effective.

Bibliometric analysis of Kampo medicine hotspots and trends for the decade: 2013–2022

“…The most frequent author contributions were by Ogawa-Ochiai, who mainly discusses clinical reports and diagnoses in Kampo medicine. [ 18 , 19 ] Makino, who had the next largest number of reports, discusses elucidating the mechanisms of action of various Kampo medicines, focusing on basic experiments. [ 20 , 21 ] The most-cited author was Kase, whose paper on the mechanism of action of daikenchuto compounds, which considered their additive, synergistic effects, was the most cited.…”

Development of telemedicine tools with an emphasis on visual observation

“…Our previous studies demonstrated that tongue color reflects the diagnosis in Kampo medicine [ 19 ], and evaluation of Kampo Disease State is possible with images of the face and tongue [ 20 , 21 ]. Facial color diagnosis is also an important diagnostic method in Kampo medicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).…”