[Application and development of cohort study in Chinese medicine]

To evaluate the cohort study in Chinese medicine research, especially in acupuncture study field. This paper introduced the concepts, methods and applications of cohort study; furthermore, it introduced the applications and progress of cohort study in clinical Chinese medicine research at present. In China, cohort study has been mainly used in Chinese medicine research focusing on tumors, any researches using cohort study in acupuncture were not retrieved. Contrarily, the cohort study has been used earlier and advocated to apply in abroad acupuncture research. As one of methods in classic epidemiological observational studies, cohort study is fit to evaluate clinical researches of Chinese medicine and acu-moxibustion, so it is worthy of being promoted in applications.