Identifying Chinese Herbal Medicine Network for Endometriosis: Implications from a Population-Based Database in Taiwan

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2017;2017:7501015. doi: 10.1155/2017/7501015. Epub 2017 Jun 27. Tsai PJ1, Lin YH1,2,3, Chen JL1,2, Yang SH1,2, Chen YC4, Chen HY1,2,3,5. Author information 1 Division of Chinese Internal Medicine, Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 2 School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 3 Graduate Institute of Clinical Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 4 School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan. 5 Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. Abstract BACKGROUND: Endometriosis is a common but bothersome gynecological disease, and Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is used for treating endometriosis. The aim of this study is to explore CHM network and core treatments for endometriosis by analyzing nationwide CHM prescription database. METHODS: From 1998 to 2013, the CHM prescriptions made primarily for endometriosis among women diagnosed with endometriosis (ICD-9-CM code: 671) by gynecologists during their reproductive age were collected. CHM network analysis was then carried out by using association rule mining and social network analysis. RESULTS: A total of 12,986 CHM prescriptions made for endometriosis were analyzed. There were 556 kinds of CHM ever used, and, in average, each prescription was composed of 6.2 CHMs. Gui-Zhi-Fu-Ling-Wan (GZFLW) was used most frequently, followed by Cyperus rotundus (28.1% and 18.8% of all prescriptions, resp.). Additionally, the combination of Cyperus rotundus with GZFLW (8.0%) was the most frequently used combination of two CHMs. CHM network showed that GZFLW was the core CHM for endometriosis and graphically demonstrated the extensive coverage of TCM syndromes and pathogenesis of endometriosis. CONCLUSIONS: CHM network provides graphical demonstration and summary of commonly used CHMs for endometriosis, and further studies are warranted based on these findings. PMID: 28740539 PMCID: PMC5504931 DOI: 10.1155/2017/7501015 Free PMC Article Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google+ Images from this publication.See all images (2)Free text Figure 1Figure 2 LinkOut - more resources