Dissertation
Systems diagnosis in chronic disease: prediction and evaluation
Promotor: J. van der Greef, T. Hankemeier; Co-promotor: H.A. van Wietmarschen
- Author
- Junzeng Fu
- Date
- 21 February 2017
- Links
- Thesis in Leiden Repository
On the basis of systems thinking, in this thesis metabolomics, Chinese medicine (CM), as well as Western medicine (WM) were combined to achieve a more comprehensive systems diagnosis of patients with chronic diseases. Specifically, metabolomics has been applied to characterize patients by small molecule profiles, which can be applied in phenotyping patients and matching these with optimal therapies. Chinese and Western medicine have different perspectives on diagnosis and could be highly complementary to each other, so combining both could have advantages in personalized diagnosis. Therefore, in this thesis a combination of systems approaches is used, including metabolomics, CM-based diagnosis principles as well as WM to provide systems diagnosis of patients with chronic diseases, in particular rheumatoid arthritis (RA). With systems diagnosis, we could better identify potential biomarkers to predict the WM therapeutic response of patients with RA and monitoring disease progression.