• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2009

Objective: Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) has emerged as an important optical imaging modality in non-invasive medical diagnostics. Hence, the aim of this study is to measure the similarity of the diagnosis by a traditional method using doctor's hand for feeling of pulse and by the non-contact/non-invasive pulse analyzing system using OCT on Chon(寸), Kwan(關), Chuk(尺). Method: Four korean medical doctors and the non-contact/non-invasive pulse analyzing system using OCT have measured the rapidity, the dimension, and the power of pulse waves of 25 volunteers. First, four korean medical doctors measured pulse waves of volunteers. During measuring, four doctors were separated from each other and so were volunteers. And then, the pulse waves of volunteers were measured by OCT. This was performed on the right Chon(寸), Kwan(關), Chuk(尺). Results: The study showed that the traditional method and the OCT based method had the 88% matches on the values of the slow and rapid pulse condition (遲數), 64% matches on the values of the small and big pulse condition(微細弱緩大[洪]), and 72% matches on the values of the weak and strong pulse condition(虛實). Conclusions: Based on the high similarities of the measurements of two approaches, we suggest that the OCT based pulse diagnosis method is useful for compensating the traditional method for the pulse diagnosis.