PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding

Background The prescriptions of traditional chinese medicine (TCM) have made a great contribution to the treatment of disease and the maintenance of good health. Current research on prescription recommendations mainly focuses on the correlation between symptoms and herbs. However, the semantic infor...

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Main Authors: Zhihua Wen, Yunchun Dong, Lihong Peng, Longxin Zhang, Junfeng Yan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: PeerJ Inc. 2025-08-01
Series:PeerJ Computer Science
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Online Access:https://peerj.com/articles/cs-2974.pdf
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author Zhihua Wen
Yunchun Dong
Lihong Peng
Longxin Zhang
Junfeng Yan
author_facet Zhihua Wen
Yunchun Dong
Lihong Peng
Longxin Zhang
Junfeng Yan
author_sort Zhihua Wen
collection DOAJ
description Background The prescriptions of traditional chinese medicine (TCM) have made a great contribution to the treatment of disease and the maintenance of good health. Current research on prescription recommendations mainly focuses on the correlation between symptoms and herbs. However, the semantic information inherent in both symptoms and herbs has received limited attention. Furthermore, most datasets in the field of TCM suffer from limited data volumes, which can adversely impact model training. Methods To tackle these challenges, we present a prescription recommendation framework called PRDAGE, which is based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding. We started by collecting medical records and creating a dataset of 3,052 classic medical cases, where we normalized the symptoms and herbs. Additionally, we developed a multi-layer embedding method for symptoms and herbs, using Sentence Bert (SBert) and graph convolutional networks. The aim of this multi-layer embedding method is to capture and represent the semantic information of symptoms and herbs, as well as the complex relationships between them. Additionally, a median-based random data augmentation method was introduced to enrich the medical case data, effectively enhancing the model’s accuracy. Results The model was evaluated against baseline models on an unenhanced dataset (Dataset-B), and the results showed that the proposed PRDAGE framework exhibited superior overall performance. Compared to the second-best model, PRDAGE achieved improvements in accuracy and recall rates of 1.69% and 3.80%, respectively, on the Top@10 metric. Ablation experiments further revealed that both the data augmentation and multi-layer embedding modules contributed to the improved model performance. Conclusion In conclusion, the experimental results suggest that PRDAGE is an effective prescription recommendation framework. The multi-layer embedding approach effectively represents the semantic information of symptoms and the complex relationships between symptoms and herbs. Additionally, the use of median-based data augmentation has a positive impact on the overall performance and generalization ability of the model.
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spelling doaj-art-1f72f2f9ec5f451f9c3ff31ec81ddddd2025-08-20T02:55:10ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ Computer Science2376-59922025-08-0111e297410.7717/peerj-cs.2974PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embeddingZhihua Wen0Yunchun Dong1Lihong Peng2Longxin Zhang3Junfeng Yan4School of Computer Science, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou, ChinaSchool of Informatics, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, ChinaSchool of Computer Science, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou, ChinaSchool of Computer Science, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou, ChinaSchool of Informatics, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, ChinaBackground The prescriptions of traditional chinese medicine (TCM) have made a great contribution to the treatment of disease and the maintenance of good health. Current research on prescription recommendations mainly focuses on the correlation between symptoms and herbs. However, the semantic information inherent in both symptoms and herbs has received limited attention. Furthermore, most datasets in the field of TCM suffer from limited data volumes, which can adversely impact model training. Methods To tackle these challenges, we present a prescription recommendation framework called PRDAGE, which is based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding. We started by collecting medical records and creating a dataset of 3,052 classic medical cases, where we normalized the symptoms and herbs. Additionally, we developed a multi-layer embedding method for symptoms and herbs, using Sentence Bert (SBert) and graph convolutional networks. The aim of this multi-layer embedding method is to capture and represent the semantic information of symptoms and herbs, as well as the complex relationships between them. Additionally, a median-based random data augmentation method was introduced to enrich the medical case data, effectively enhancing the model’s accuracy. Results The model was evaluated against baseline models on an unenhanced dataset (Dataset-B), and the results showed that the proposed PRDAGE framework exhibited superior overall performance. Compared to the second-best model, PRDAGE achieved improvements in accuracy and recall rates of 1.69% and 3.80%, respectively, on the Top@10 metric. Ablation experiments further revealed that both the data augmentation and multi-layer embedding modules contributed to the improved model performance. Conclusion In conclusion, the experimental results suggest that PRDAGE is an effective prescription recommendation framework. The multi-layer embedding approach effectively represents the semantic information of symptoms and the complex relationships between symptoms and herbs. Additionally, the use of median-based data augmentation has a positive impact on the overall performance and generalization ability of the model.https://peerj.com/articles/cs-2974.pdfPrescription recommendationHerb recommendationData augmentationSymptom-herb relationship representation
spellingShingle Zhihua Wen
Yunchun Dong
Lihong Peng
Longxin Zhang
Junfeng Yan
PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding
PeerJ Computer Science
Prescription recommendation
Herb recommendation
Data augmentation
Symptom-herb relationship representation
title PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding
title_full PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding
title_fullStr PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding
title_full_unstemmed PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding
title_short PRDAGE: a prescription recommendation framework for traditional Chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi-graph embedding
title_sort prdage a prescription recommendation framework for traditional chinese medicine based on data augmentation and multi graph embedding
topic Prescription recommendation
Herb recommendation
Data augmentation
Symptom-herb relationship representation
url https://peerj.com/articles/cs-2974.pdf
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