Abstract: Objective To study the rules of drug administration and prescription in traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) treatment for children with bronchiolitis obliterans based on TCM inheritance system software.
Methods The prescriptions for bronchiolitis obliterans in children were collected and sorted out in respiratory ward of Pediatric Department of the First Hospital Affiliated to Henan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The unsupervised data-mining methods, such as the Apriori algorithm and the complex system entropy clustering, were adopted to find out frequency of drug use and the association rules among drugs, and to analyze the characteristics of drug use and the prescription rules in TCM treatment for children with bronchiolitis obliterans.
Results A total of 122 prescriptions were included, involving 109 Chinese medicines. Twenty kinds of medicines were used more than 50 times; when the support degree was 72 and the confidence degree was 0.96, there were 22 drug combinations. In addition, 28 core compatible combinations and 14 new prescriptions were discovered, which could be used in the treatment of the disease.
Conclusion The pathogenesis of bronchiolitis obliterans in children is associated with stagnation of sputum, blood stasis, deficiency and blockade. The treatment should be performed according to phases. During the acute phase, the drugs with the effect of clearing lungs and reducing phlegm, relieving cough and asthma and dispelling stasis and dredging collaterals, should be used; besides, attention should be paid to the use of drugs for warming Yang and strengthening body.

Key words: Bronchiolitis obliterans, TCM treatment, Acute phase, Association rules, Clustering algorithm