Advances of multi-dimensional spectrum-effect relationship for the research on traditional Chinese medicine

The therapeutic effect and safety of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)are known to directly depend on its quality. In the past decade, a lot of researchers have undertaken many researches on spectrum-effect relationship of TCM in an attempt to associate the chemical composition in fingerprint chromatograms with its pharmacodynamic activity, and to establish scientific quality standards which accord with the efficacy of Chinese medicinal products and reflect their intrinsic quality. In this paper, due to the complexity and pharmacological diversity of the constituents of TCM, a concept of the “multi-dimensional spectrum-effect relationship” was proposed, and a variety of pharmacodynamic activities referring to the clinical effects were selected to explore this new model based on the author′s own research experiences. It could provide some reference for further improvment of the quality evaluation system of TCM.