Discovering causal patterns in TCM clinical prescription data using set-theoretic approach

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a holistic approach to medicine which has been in use in China for thousands of years. The main treatment, Chinese Medicine Formula, is prescribed by combining sets of herbs to address the patient´s syndromes and symptoms based on clinical diagnosis. Although herbs are often combined based on various classical formulas, the underlying principles for the choice of herbs are not well understood. In this paper, we apply a set-theoretic approach to explore the complex relationships amongst herbs in TCM clinical prescriptions using Boolean logic.