[Conception and practice of "three dimensions and four stages" clinical orientation method for post-marketing evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine].

The article summarized the relevant researches on the clinical orientation of Chinese patent medicines, and put forward the post-marking principle and strategies of the clinical orientation. The principle could be illustrated by four criteria: overall design, step-by-step implementation, from easiness to hardness, gradual concentration. The strategies were as follows: first carrying out the projects with little cost of money and time, and then the projects requiring much cost of money and time, so that the possibility of fai-lure would be put forward at an early stage to reduce the loss caused by research failure as much as possible by consolidating the research projects with less investment at the early stage and gradually increasing the research projects with more investment at the later stage. On this basis, the "three dimensions and four stages" key technology was proposed for the post-marketing clinical orientation of traditional Chinese medicine. Medicines, diseases and patients were the "three dimensions", so we should understand the features and interaction of the target indications, symptoms and population to establish a three-dimensional clinical positioning coordinate system. "Four stages" were the four steps of clues analyzing, hypothesis orientation, preliminary verification and clinical validation. Each latter stage should be started after full completion of the former one, and the latter stage results shall be used to validate and revise the former clinical orientational hypothesis, continuously forming a feedback circle. Based on the sufficient verification of previous study, prospective clinical trials were implemented at last to get the best evidence-based evidence of clinical orientational hypothesis.