• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.637-644
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• 2018

Objectives: In this study, the tongue features of patients with functional dyspepsia (FD) were compared with those of healthy controls. Methods: This prospective, case-control study was conducted on patients with FD and controls recruited at a single center. After screening, the subjects were allocated to the patient or control groups (patients=42, controls=40). Tongue images were acquired using a computerized tongue image acquisition system (CTIS). An independent t-test was conducted to compare the measurements from patients and controls. Binary logistic regression was performed to determine significant differences between the two groups after adjusting for age and sex. Results: The CIE $a^*$ color value in the tongue coating area was significantly lower in the patients with FD than in the controls (p=0.001). The tongue coating ratios were also significantly higher in the FD group than in the control group (p=0.003). We found that the CIE $a^*$ color value in the tongue coating area and the tongue coating ratios were significant predictive factors in both groups, based on binary regression analysis (p=0.016, 0.044, respectively). Conclusions: This study found that FD was significantly associated with CIE $a^*$ color value in the tongue coating area and tongue coating ratios. We suggest that these factors could be used as objective indicators of FD.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.945-961
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• 2019

Tongue diagnosis is one of the most important diagnostic methods in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Tongue image segmentation aims to extract the image object (i.e., tongue body), which plays a key role in the process of manufacturing an automated tongue diagnosis system. It is still challenging, because there exists the personal diversity in tongue appearances such as size, shape, and color. This paper proposes an innovative segmentation method that uses image thresholding, gray projection and active contour model (ACM). Specifically, an initial object region is first extracted by performing image thresholding in HSI (i.e., Hue Saturation Intensity) color space, and subsequent morphological operations. Then, a gray projection technique is used to determine the upper bound of the tongue body root for refining the initial object region. Finally, the contour of the refined object region is smoothed by ACM. Experimental results on a dataset composed of 100 color tongue images showed that the proposed method obtained more accurate segmentation results than other available state-of-the-art methods.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.14B no.2
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• pp.71-80
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• 2007

In this paper, We propose face type classification, tongue region extraction and tongue color analysis method for Oriental medicine diagnosis system to supply web based medical treatment information. This presents to construct system that takes super aging society and uses ocular inspection and longue diagnosis in web-based to embody this by an IT Technology as generalization and popularization of medical benefit are social requirement and supplies medical treatment information. Place that reflect living body signal of human body ordinarily and appear becomes iris or tongue, five sensory organs etc. This paper proposes classification of face type, extraction of five sensory organs for observing a person's shape and color among diseases diagnosis based on home health care that propose to develop and region extraction and color analysis etc, of tongue which intensively represents the bio-signals of human-beings. Finally, the effectiveness of this paper is verified by several experiments.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.149-157
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• 2013

Objectives This study was designed to: (1) investigate the clinical feature of tongue diagnosis, (2) make an observation of significant changes in tongue diagnosis according to the patient's physical condition and laboratory result and (3) identify clinical efficacy of tongue diagnosis. Methods 300 patients' tongue diagnosis results were analyzed and the patients were divided to each group according to the physical condition and laboratory result. Then, chi-square test was performed to assess statistical significance between tongue diagnosis results of each group. Results As a result of analyzing the spread of tongue diagnosis according to the patient's physical condition and laboratory result, 18 groups had statistical significance related to specific tongue color and tongue coating. Conclusions Even if there would be possible misinterpretations in one-to-one match between the tongue diagnosis and certain diseases, we identified that tongue diagnosis results were changed somewhat related to patient's physical condition with some tendency and tongue diagnosis could be used for meaningful clinical diagnostic tool.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.119-124
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• 2007

Introduction: In Oriental medicine, the status of tongue is the important indicator to diagnose one's health, because it represents physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body. The method of tongue diagnosis is not only convenient but also non-invasive, so tongue diagnosis is most widely used in Oriental medicine. By the way, since tongue diagnosis is affected by examination circumstances a lot, its performance depends on a light source, degrees of an angle, a medical doctor's condition etc. Therefore, it is not easy to make an objective and standardized tongue diagnosis. In order to solve this problem, in this study, we tried to design a discriminant function for thick and thin coating with color vectors of preprocessed image. Method: 52 subjects, who were diagnosed as white-coated tongue, were involved. Among them, 45 subjects diagnosed as thin coating and 7 subjects diagnosed as thick coating by oriental medical doctors, and then their tongue images were obtained from a digital tongue diagnosis system. Using those acquired tongue images, we implemented two steps: Preprocessing and image analyzing. The preprocessing part of this method includes histogram equalization and histogram stretching at each color component, especially, intensity and saturation. It makes the difference between tongue substance and tongue coating was more visible, so that we can separate tongue coating easily. Next part, we analyzed the characteristic of color values and found the threshold to divide tongue area into coating area. Then, from tongue coating image, it is possible to extract the variables that were important to classify thick and thin coating. Result : By statistical analysis, two significant vectors, associated with G, were found, which were able to describe the difference between thick and thin coating very well. Using these two variables, we designed the discriminant function for coating classification and examined its performance. As a result, the overall accuracy of thick and thin coating classification was 92.3%. Discussion : From the result, we can expect that the discriminant function is applicable to other coatings in a similar way. Also, it can be used to make an objective and standardized diagnosis.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.101-109
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• 2001

A clinical observation by the tongue change as a diagnostic method was made on 36 week children visited to Dongeui Oriental Medical Hospital from August. 2001 to December 2001 and the observed results were summarized as follows. 1. Their symptoms have been observed with sequences of Resparatory diseases, Digestive, Neuromotor, Psycho-neurological, Urogenital diseases 2. Distribution of sex : male 22 cases, female 14 cases 3. Distribution of age : 0-6 years 24 cases, 7-18 years 12 cases 4. The texture of tongue was resulted in tongue color in pink-28 cases, red-8 case, and shape in thin-18 cases, swelling-6 cases, a fissured patten-5 cases, a prickly patten-4 cases, and a map patten-3 cases, and fur of the tongue in thin-26 cases, moisten-8 cases, deep-2 cases, and coating color of the tongue in thin and whitish-15 cases, thin and yellowish-9 cases, lack-8 cases, deep and whitish-4 cases. 5. The texture of tongue in connection with weak children was come out mostly normal state and the rest red color, a fissured patten, a prickly patten, deep coating, thin and yellowish etc appeared to cause of slight damage due to exogenous pathogenic fators and due to internal injury.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.806-812
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• 2009

Objective : The aim of this study was to provide basic background information on stroke by evaluation various etiological factors on the basis that the Tongue fur color of acute stroke patients. Method : We studied patients hospitalized within 4 weeks after their ictus who were admitted at Kyunghee University Oriental Medical Center, Dongguk University Oriental Medical Center, Kyungwon University Songpa Oriental Medical Center, and Kyungwon University Incheon Oriental Medical Center from April 2008 to August 2009. We compared the general characteristics of acute stroke patients according to tongue fur color. Result : Tongue fur color showed significant difference for past history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, stroke, HDL-chol, BUN, Hg, and pulse pattern. Conclusion : The above results show that the overall tendency of acute stage cerebral infarction patients varies according to their tongue fur color. Further studies will be needed to better understand the difference between yellow fur group and white fur among acute stroke patients.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.13 no.2 s.20
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• pp.47-52
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• 2007

In Oriental medicine, the status of tongue is the important indicator to diagnose one's health, because it represents physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body. The method of tongue diagnosis is not only convenient but also non-invasive, therefore, tongue diagnosis is one of the most widely used in Oriental medicine. But tongue diagnosis is affected by examination circumstances a lot. It depends on a light source, degrees of an angle, doctor's condition and so on. So it is not easy to make an objective and standardized tongue diagnosis. As part of way to solve this problem, in this study, we tried to design a discriminant function for white and yellow coating with multi-dimensional color vectors. There were 62 subjects involved in this study, among them 48 subjects diagnosed as white-coated tongue and 14 subjects diagnosed as yellow-coated tongue by oriental doctors. And their tongue images were acquired by a well-made Digital Tongue Diagnosis System. From those acquired tongue images, each coating section were extracted by oriental doctors, and then mean values of multi -dimensional color vectors in each coating section were calculated. By statistical analysis, two significant vectors, R in RGB space and H in HSV space, were found that they were able to describe the difference between white coating section and yellow coating section very well. Using these two values, we designed the discriminant function for coating classification and examined how good it works. As a result, the overall accuracy of coating classification was 98.4%. We can expect that the discriminant function for other coatings can be obtained in a similar way. Furthermore, if an automated segmentation algorithm of tongue coating is combined with these discriminant functions, an automated tongue coating diagnosis can be accomplished.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.23-37
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• 2002

We have plenty of study of adults diseases, but not much has been said about children. 79 children who had visited in the weak children of Dongeui Oriental Medical Hospital from March, 2002 to October, 2002, were the respondents of the Weak Child Questionnaire. The results obtained were as follows: 1. Their symptoms have been observed with sequences of respiratory diseases, Digestive diseases, Psycho-neurological diseases. 2. Distribution of sex and ages : male 38 cases, female 41 cases. $0{\sim}6$ years 60 cases, $7{\sim}12$ years 17 cases, $13{\sim}18$ years 2 cases. 3. The texture of complexion was resulted in face color and the region of the face : whitish-2/ cases. yellowish-27 cases, darkish-22 cases, blue-2 cases, flushed face-l case. Sangeun(山根)-blue : 59 cases, a lower eyelid- dark or light brown : 54 cases. the rests of color on face region didn't mean. 4. The texture of tongue was ended in tongue state : tongue form-not plump not haggard patten(57 cases), a pricky patten(12), a map patten(7), a fissured patten(3). tongue color- pink (57 cases), red(16), light white(6). coating color- thin white(61 cases), thin yellow(l0), lack(6), deep and white(2). tongue coating substance-thin(72 cases), moisten(5), dry(1), deep(1).

• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2015

Objectives The purpose of this study was to survey the status of clinical use of a computerized tongue diagnosis system (CTDS) Methods We searched domestic/international articles using the CTDS from online medical databases including OASIS, NDSL and pubmed. We selected articles on clinical application or reliability of CTDS but excluded articles on mechanical design or software programming for developing a new CTDS. Finally we found 15 articles and classified the articles according to the study purpose. Results Out of the 15 articles, 8 were focused on the clinical application including halitosis, cold/heat syndrome, lung cancer, xerostomia etc. Other 5 articles were aimed at evaluating and improving reliability of CTDS. The other 2 articles were studied for development of differential diagnostic criteria on tongue coating thickness. Conclusion We found out that until now the researches on clinical application of CTDS mainly had been performed for producing a variety of CTDSs. Considering the importance of the tongue color in the traditional Korean medicine, we suggest that at first standard operating procedure for CTDS be developed and researches to develop differential diagnostic criteria on tongue body/coating color be performed and then explore its applications.