Abstract: Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome of post-cholecystectomy syndrome (PCS) based on factor-cluster analysis. Methods The clinical data mainly including TCM syndrome in 50 patients with PCS were collected in our hospital between March 2014 and March 2018. The PCS symptom were analyzed by factor-cluster analysis. Results The main TCM syndromes in our series were as follows, e.g. nausea and vomiting accounted for 68.0%, hypochondriac and running pain for 66.0%, costal channeling pain for 48.0%, chest swelling for 32.0%, mental burnout for 48.0%, fatigue for 44.0% , poor appetite for 40.0% and loose stool for 26.0%; the KMO test showed that the KMO was 0.8, and the Bartlett test showed that the approximate chi-square value was 13454.5 (P < 0.05); the factor analysis showed that there were 12 common factors, and the patients with PCS were classified into six syndrome types based on disease location and syndrome elements; the six syndromes were stagnation of Liver-qi in 42.0%, the dampness-heat of liver and gallbladder in 20.0%, the spleen-deficiency and stomach-weakness in 18.0%,the cold-congealing and yang-failure in 10.0%,the disturbance of heart and mind in 6.0%, and the blood stasis-qi stagnation in 4.0%. Conclusion The results of factor-cluster analysis showed that the TCM symptoms of patients with PCS were well dispersed and the syndromes were clear. The main symptoms were stagnation of liver-qi, dampness-heat of liver-gallbladder and weakness of spleen and stomach, which might help clinicians to manage the patients with PCS.

Key words: Post-cholecystectomy syndrome, TCM syndromes, Factor analysis, Cluster analysis