ISO/TS 6304:2022

Traditional Chinese medicine - Categorial structure for disorders

This document aims to specify a categorial structure in the field of disorder representation in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) by defining a set of domain constraints for use within terminological resources. It contains a concept detailing the domains of four subcategories: body parts, causative agents, pathological process and manifestation. This document does not include: - a comprehensive categorial structure for TCM; - a treatment procedure for TCM; - relevant devices; - terms or descriptions for subcategories of body parts, causative agents, pathological process or manifestation.

Médecine traditionnelle chinoise — Structure catégorielle des troubles

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 09-May-2022
• ICS: 01.040.11 - Health care technology (Vocabularies)
• ICS: 11.020.99 - Other standards related to health care in general
• Technical Committee: ISO/TC 249 - Traditional Chinese medicine
• Drafting Committee: ISO/TC 249 - Traditional Chinese medicine
• Current Stage: 9060 - Close of review
• Completion Date: 02-Dec-2028

Overview - ISO/TS 6304:2022 (Traditional Chinese Medicine, TCM)

ISO/TS 6304:2022 specifies a minimal categorial structure for representing disorders in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) within terminological resources. The Technical Specification defines domain constraints and a concept model built around four subcategories - body parts, causative agents, pathological process, and manifestation - and formalizes directed semantic links between disorder terms and these categories. The document is intended to help standardize TCM disease terminology for computer processing, mapping and knowledge engineering, but it does not provide treatment procedures, device specifications, exhaustive term lists, or a comprehensive TCM classification.

Key topics and technical requirements

• Four characterized categories
  • Body part - anatomical and virtual structures (e.g., viscera, meridians)
  • Causative agent - elements producing disorders (e.g., wind, cold, seven emotions)
  • Pathological process - organic or disease processes (e.g., accumulation)
  • Manifestation - observable signs or symptoms (e.g., pain)
• Semantic links (formal directed relations) that link a disorder to categories:
  • Occurs in (disorder → body part)
  • Has causative agent of (disorder → causative agent)
  • Has pathological process of (disorder → pathological process)
  • Has manifestation of (disorder → manifestation)
• Terminology constraints for use in terminological resources and health informatics systems; suitable as a core model for disorder representation in TCM.
• Explicit exclusions: no exhaustive category hierarchy, no clinical treatments, no device standards, and no detailed term descriptions for subcategories.

Practical applications and users

ISO/TS 6304:2022 is useful where standardized TCM disorder representation is required:

• Developers of health informatics and electronic medical records (EMR) systems that integrate TCM terms.
• Terminology and ontology engineers building TCM terminological resources, semantic networks, or knowledge graphs.
• NLP/text-mining teams and digital humanities projects processing ancient TCM documents and extracting disorder information.
• Designers of clinical decision support tools that need a consistent core model to map TCM disorders to computational representations.
• Standards bodies, researchers and integrators working to map or harmonize TCM terminology with Western medicine terminologies.

Related standards

Relevant ISO and WHO resources referenced in the specification:

• ISO/TS 16277-1 - Categorial structures of clinical findings in traditional medicine (TCM, JTM, KTM)
• ISO/TS 16843-3 - Categorial structures for representation of acupuncture (Part 3: Moxibustion)
• ISO/TS 17938 - Semantic network framework of TCM language system
• ISO/TS 22990 - Categories of clinical terminological system to support integration of TCM and Western medicine
• WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine (Western Pacific Region)

Keywords: ISO/TS 6304:2022, Traditional Chinese Medicine, TCM, categorial structure, disorder representation, semantic links, terminology, health informatics, clinical decision support.

Standards Content (Sample)

TECHNICAL ISO/TS
SPECIFICATION 6304
First edition
2022-05
Traditional Chinese medicine —
Categorial structure for disorders
Médecine traditionnelle chinoise — Structure catégorielle des
troubles
Reference number
© ISO 2022
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
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ii
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Characterized categories .2
4.1 Body part . 2
4.2 Causative agent . 2
4.3 Pathological process . 2
4.4 Manifestation . 2
5 Semantic links for disorder terms in TCM. 2
5.1 Occurs in . 2
5.2 Has causative agent of . 2
5.3 Has pathological process of . 2
5.4 Has manifestation of . 2
Annex A (informative) Diagram of categorial structure for disorders . 4
Bibliography . 7
iii
Foreword
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iv
Introduction
The standardization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been carried out for herbs, acupuncture
and moxibustion, among other things. However, disease terminology in TCM has not yet been
standardized, nor has how to standardize the classification of diseases been discussed.
The terminology of diseases is essential knowledge in medicine for understanding and d
...