Assessment on the Accuracy of Four Types of Pulse by SM-1A TCM Pulse Detector
SM-1A中医四脉脉诊仪脉象诊断准确性的评价

This study aimed to assess the reproducibility of SM-1A TCM pulse detector according to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) experts. A total of 120 subjects were enrolled. Each subject was diagnosed by the SM-1A TCM pulse detector and TCM expert, respectively. And the pulse diagnosis was based on four types of pulse, including yimai,ju-mai, ren-mai and wen-mai. The Kappa test was applied. Compared to TCM expert, the sensitivity of the pulse detector for yi-mai was 0.859, for ju-mai was 0.945, for ren-mai was 0.957, and for wen-mai was 0.898. The specificity of the pulse detector for yi-mai was 0.875, for ju-mai was 0.8, for ren-mai was 0.907, and for wen-mai was 0.833. The Kappa value for yi-mai was 0.733, for ju-mai was 0.631, for ren-mai was 0.763, and for wen-mai was 0.549. The coincidence rate for yi-mai was 0.867, for ju-mai was 0.933, for ren-mai was 0.917, and for wen-mai was 0.892. The Youden index for yi-mai was 0.734, for ju-mai was 0.745, for ren-mai was 0.864, and for wen-mai was 0.731. The coincidence rate of SM-1A TCM pulse detector in the successive diagnosis of the same patient was 81.7%. Therefore, the SM-1A TCM pulse detector is able to diagnose the pulse accurately based on the four types of pulse. The test-retest reliability was good.