Analysis of Medication Pattern of Proprietary Chinese Medicines in the Treatment of Liver Depression Based on Data Mining

Objective To analyse the medication pattern of Proprietary Chinese Medicine for treating liver depression syndrome based on data mining techniques. Methods Proprietary Chinese medicines for the treatment of hepatic depression syndrome were extracted from the Chinese medicine data mining system (http://www.tcmminer.com/), screened and a database was created. Using Excel, SPSS Statistics 22, TCM Data Mining System, Knime and Cytoscape 3.10.2, we carried out dosage form statistics, primary disease statistics, liver-depression typing statistics, medication frequency statistics, TCM attribute statistics, association rule analysis and cluster analysis to explore the pattern of medication use in the formulas.Results A total of 116 Proprietary Chinese Medicine prescriptions involving 265 Chinese medicines were included, and the dosage form statistics showed that pills were the most popular, followed by capsules. Among the diseases treated, liver diseases were the most common. Among the subtypes of Liver Depression, Liver Depression and Spleen Deficiency and Liver Depression and Qi Stagnation accounted for the majority. The 15 Chinese medicines with a frequency of ≥20 were Bai Shao, Chai Hu and Glycyrrhiza glabra. Among the medicinal properties, warm was the most common, followed by cold, flat, cool and hot. Among the flavours, bitter was the most common, followed by pungent, sweet, sour, light, salty and astringent. The meridians with the most medicines were spleen, liver and lung meridians, followed by stomach, heart, kidney and gall bladder meridians. In the statistics of drug efficacy, qi tonic, qi regulator and blood tonic accounted for the majority. The combination of 12 core drugs was derived through association rule analysis. By systematic cluster analysis, they were classified into 3 different categories.Conclusion Bai Shao, Chai Hu and Glycyrrhiza glabra are mostly used in proprietary Chinese medicines for the treatment of liver depression, in which the medicinal properties are mostly warm, the taste is mostly bitter, and most of them are attributed to the liver and spleen meridians.