OBJECTIVETo investigate the plasma samples obtained from tumor patients using (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and find the biochemical foundation of abnormal Savda described in traditional Uyghur medicine.

METHODSA total of 170 tumor patients with abnormal Savda syndrome who were confirmed clinically were enrolled in this study, and 50 healthy volunteers were set up as controls. The plasma (1)H NMR spectra were analyzed using the orthogonal projection to latent structure with discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) method with unit variance scaling. The discriminative significance of the metabolites was determined using the Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient.

RESULTSCompared with the healthy controls, the tumor patients with abnormal Savda syndrome had uniformly correlative low levels of leucine, isoleucine, valine, histidine, tyrosine, alanine, glutamine, creatine, inositol, α-glucose, and β-glucose (P<0.05), but had significantly high levels of formate, malonic acid, acetone, acetate, acetoacetate, pyruvate, β-hydroxy butyrate, carnitine and lipidtemns such as very low density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein and unsaturated lipids (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONTumor patients with abnormal Savda syndrome had similar metabolic changes and characteristics, which indicated a similar pathogenetic process and provides some biochemical basis for traditional Uyghur medicine theory.