Combination of disease and syndrome in coronary artery disease: prevention and treatment strategies

The combination of disease and syndrome might be the optimal pattern for integration of Chinese and western medicine with highly innovative value. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a major disease that endangers health. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has developed a new understanding of the pathogenesis of CAD by taking blood stasis as the key syndrome (Zheng). Quantitative criteria and new diagnostic markers of CAD were established, from qualitative to quantitative aspects. Through evidence-based methods and biotechnological methods, the clinical efficacy, safety and the mechanism of TCM against CAD were confirmed. Represented by activating blood circulation and resolving blood stasis, the strategy combining Chinese and Western medicine was established for the prevention and treatment of CAD, featuring disease-syndrome combination. Several blood stasis criteria enabled the quantitative scoring of the degree of blood stasis. Innumerable randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using activating blood circulation as the interventions confirmed the efficacy and safety of this therapy. The mechanisms of activating blood circulation involve platelet function, inflammatory mediators, and oxidative stress, and numerous relevant targets need further elaboration. Here, we review the research progress of integration of Chinese and western medicine in the prevention and treatment of CAD over the past 60 years, starting from activating blood circulation as the entry point of the disease-syndrome combination research, providing an outlook on the future research direction and reference for further optimizing the Chinese solution for the prevention and treatment of CAD with Chinese characteristics.