Asserted and neglected issues linking evidence-based and Chinese medicines for cardiac rehabilitation

Table 2 Summary description of studies on the neglected issues linking evidence-based and Chinese medicines

Ref.	Study characteristics	Main results	Main limitation
Anatomical variations of vessels
Chen et al[43]	Cross-sectional observational study One hundred healthy subjects, forty-six with pancreatitis, forty-two with duodenal bulb ulcer, twenty-two with appendicitis, and third-eight with acute appendicitis	Accuracy of 82% for classification of normal or abnormal pulses using an auto-regressive model for analysis of wrist pulse signals (blood flow signal) and a support vector machine	Ultrasound-based blood flow measurements was subjected to manual positioning and operator experience Only one position was investigated (above the styloid process) Pattern differentiation was performed (in either group) and the results were not related to Chinese medicine theory
Huang et al[44]	Cross-sectional observational study Thirty normal subjects and thirty patients with palpitation	Higher spectral harmonic energy ratio in patients	Only 10 s were evaluated at each position Palpitation was only characterized by the evidence-based medicine and no correspondence to patterns was established Pattern differentiation was performed in either group and the results were not related to Chinese medicine theory Lack of relationship between spectral harmonic energy ratio and Chinese medicine theory for pulse palpation
Hu et al[45]	Cross-sectional observational study Six normal subjects (all male)	No significant difference was observed on pulse waveform parameters obtained with single or array sensors Significant differences were observed among depths	Only one position was investigated (above the styloid process) Pattern differentiation was performed in either group and the results were not related to Chinese medicine theory