Clinical usefulness of objective tongue image devices monitoring in temporal tongue color: a demonstration of successively treated cases with traditional medicines

The article addresses the Tongue Image Analyzing System (TIAS), developed to objectively monitor changes in tongue diagnosis in traditional Japanese medicine (Kampo). In Kampo medicine, tongue observation is an important diagnostic method used for selecting medications and monitoring treatment effectiveness. The study presents two representative cases of patients with varying degrees of tongue color changes. In the first case, subtle tongue color changes were detected that were difficult to recognize with the naked eye, with a color difference (ΔE00) of 1–2 after 42 days. In the second case, a marked tongue color change occurred with a difference of ΔE00 10.08 after 105 days. TIAS enables standardized longitudinal tongue imaging and objective comparison of changes that would be difficult to perceive with the naked eye.