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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Artif. Intell.
Sec. Medicine and Public Health
Volume 7 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frai.2024.1501184

Visceral Condition Assessment through Digital Tongue Image Analysis

Provisionally accepted
  • Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has long utilized tongue diagnosis as a crucial method for assessing internal visceral condition. This study aims to modernize this ancient practice by developing an automated system for analyzing tongue images in relation to the five organs, corresponding to the heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney -collectively known as the "five viscera" in TCM. We propose a novel tongue image partitioning algorithm that divides the tongue into four regions associated with these specific organs, according to TCM principles. These partitioned regions are then processed by our newly developed OrganNet, a specialized neural network designed to focus on organ-specific features. Our method simulates the TCM diagnostic process while leveraging modern machine learning techniques. To support this research, we have created a comprehensive tongue image dataset specifically tailored for these five visceral pattern assessment. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in accurately identifying correlations between tongue regions and visceral conditions. This study bridges TCM practices with contemporary technology, potentially enhancing diagnostic accuracy and efficiency in both TCM and modern medical contexts.

    Keywords: Tongue diagnosis, inspection of the tongue, Chinese medicine, Five viscera, deep learning, Multi-task learning

    Received: 14 Oct 2024; Accepted: 28 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ho, Chen, Xie, Yeung, CHEN and Qin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yiliang Chen, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
    Shu Cheng CHEN, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
    Jing Qin, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.