Fundamental study for the Standardization and Objectification of Pattern Identification in traditional Korean medicine for Stroke (SOPI-Stroke): An overview of the second and third stages

IntroductionAim of this paper is to provide an overview of the second and final stages of the Fundamental Study for the Standardization and Objectification of Pattern Identification in Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM) for stroke (SOPI-Stroke).MethodsThe total duration of this project was nearly 9 years (April 2005 to December 2013), and was divided into 3 stages. The objective of the second and third stages of this project was the validation and confirmation of pattern identification in the SOPI-Stroke using the clinical data from cross-sectional and prospective clinical studies and finding candidate biomarkers for Pattern Identification (PI) diagnosis. Approximately 117 researchers from 3 national institutes, 11 universities and 27 hospitals participated in the second stage. The clinical evaluation of PI for stroke was performed during the third stage using observational design and follow-up.ResultsWe finally confirmed 4 patterns ((Fire-heat pattern, damp-phlegm pattern (dampness-phlegm pattern), Qi-deficiency pattern, and Yin-deficiency pattern)) with 44 pattern indicators for diagnosing Korean patients with stroke. The Korean standard PI for stroke (K-SPI-Stroke) tool was developed, and a clinical and biomedical database (totaling 6400 cases) was constructed at the end of the second stage. At the end of the third stage, the “Handbook of Terminology and Formulae for Pattern Identification of Stroke in Korean Medicine” and the white paper titled ‘White Paper of Pattern Identification Research in Korean Medicine’, describing the full process of the SOPI-Stroke project, were completed.ConclusionsThis study will help to design future research and advance the scientific knowledge of physicians by enhancing the accuracy of PI in TKM.