title: Latent variable analysis on Chinese medicine syndrome in patients with antituberculosis drug-induced liver injury.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the Chinese medicine (CM) syndrome discipline in patients with antituberculosis drug (ATBD)-induced liver injury to provide the basis of the standard Chinese medicine treatment for the disease with latent variable analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Epidemiological investigation method was adopted. Two hundred and sixty-one patients with ATBD-induced liver injury were investigated using CM syndrome questionnaire. The syndrome types were determined with exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and the latent variables were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Totally 26 indexes related to CM syndrome differentiation were obtained from the 261 eligible cases, among them, 5 were as the latent dependent variables, which corresponded to 5 common syndrome types, including dampness encumbering the Spleen (Pi), Liver (Gan)-qi stagnation, Spleen and Stomach (Wei) deficiency, stasis-toxin accumulation, and qi-yin deficiency. CFA indicated that the indexes with loading coefficient [Symbol: see text]0.6 exactly reflected the connotation of its corresponding syndrome type.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Five CM syndrome types are the most common in patients with ATBD-induced liver injury, which relate to their corresponding indexes for differentiation. It is feasible to apply combined EFA and CFA for explaination and measurement of the existence of CM syndrome under specific diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Endocrinology, Hangzhou Red-Cross Hospital, Hangzhou, 310003, China.
authors.forename: Guo-Ling
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Yan-Fei
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Xiao-Jian
authors.initials: XJ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Mou