Abstract
BACKGROUND: Clinically, Chinese medicine is mostly used to treat ascites due to hepatitis B cirrhosis by nourishing-yin. We summarize the pattern of prescriptions for nourishing-yin inascites due to hepatitis B cirrhosis based on data mining to better use traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to treat cirrhotic ascites in hepatitis B. METHODS: Articles published from 2000 to 2020 on ascites due to hepatitis B cirrhosis were searched in the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure and Chinese Science and Technology Journal Database. The results of the search were screened and then treated as the data sources in turn. Based on the data sources, a prescription database of ascites due to hepatitis B cirrhosis was constructed. The data mining was conducted by statistical analysis of frequency and association. Core herbs, including the property and flavor, channel tropism, regularities of medicinal recipes, and core sets, among others, were examined. RESULTS: Through combing 199 articles, a total of 201 prescriptions were selected, involving 138 kinds of herbs. The efficacy of cold herbs was slightly higher than that of warm herbs. The main flavors of herbs were sweet, bitter, and pungent. There were 30 herbs used ≥26 times in 201 prescriptions. The highest frequency of use was Poria cocos, followed by atractylodis macrocephalae, and radix astragali. Ninety-nine commonly used drug combinations were obtained according to the association rules, of which there were 60 associated drug groups with a frequency ≥34, of which the highest frequency was poria cocos-rhizoma atractylodis macrocephalae, poria cocos-oriental water plantain rhizome, poria cocos-radix astragali. Frequent medicinal recipes consisted largely of medicines for tonifying deficiency, including diuretics for eliminating dampness, medicines for promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, and supplements for clearing heat and regulating qi. CONCLUSIONS: Through data mining, it was found that when TCM treats ascites due to hepatitis B cirrhosis, it attaches importance to using methods of tonifying deficiency and invigorating spleen for diuresis based on nourishing-yin to improve the clinical efficacy, which can provide reference for TCM's clinical use of nourishing-yin to treat ascites due to hepatitis B cirrhosis.