Reversal of amino acid metabolism patterns between circulating blood and tumors as a new biomarker for the Zhengxu Xieshi syndrome in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Objective: To uncover the biological foundation of the prevailing TCM syndrome in individuals with Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), Zhengxu Xieshi (ZXXS), which is characterized by a deficiency in vital and an excess in evil .

Methods: We investigated shifts in vital by quantifying systemic metabolic changes in the peripheral blood. Serum metabolomic profiling was conducted on the ESCC cohort 1 along with a matched healthy control cohort.