Objective: To analyze the research status, research hotspots and frontier trends of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the treatment of influenza in the past 20 years through the knowledge graph, so as to provide reference basis for further research.
Methods: The related literatures of TCM in the treatment of influenza were collected in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) from 2000 to 2019. The relevant graphs of authors, research institutions and key words were drawn by CiteSpace 5.6, the distribution and cooperation of main research forces in this field were analyzed, and the research frontiers and hot spot information in this field were discussed.
Results: A total of 3 048 related literatures were obtained, involving 949 authors and 242 research institutions. The analysis of the number of articles showed that the volume of articles related to the treatment of influenza with TCM fluctuated greatly in the past 20 years, which was obviously affected by the sudden hot spots around 2010, but showed an overall upward trend, with an average annual volume of about 152 articles. The analysis of the author's cooperation map showed that a total of 77 core authors had published more than 5 articles, accounting for only 8.1% of all authors, and 5 authors had published more than 30 articles. Five major teams had been formed with Gu Ligang, Liu Qingquan, Lu Fangguo, Cui Xiaolan and Zhang Fengxue as the core. The analysis of the cooperation map of research institutions showed that the cooperation among institutions was not good, and only the scientific research institutes in Beijing and Guangzhou had formed a closely related cooperation network. The keyword co-occurrence map showed that 8 keywords appeared more than 100 times, especially ultra-high-frequency keywords, influenza virus ranked first (n = 518). There were 14 key nodes, such as influenza virus, TCM treatment, viral pneumonia and so on, which supported the current research field of TCM in the treatment of influenza. Fourteen clusters were formed to classify the current research hotspots, including the nomenclature of influenza, virus type, TCM treatment, western medicine knowledge, etc., and the map showed that the clustering was reasonable and the structure was significant. Timeline graph showed that parainfluenza virus, virus disease, pharmacodynamics, heat-clearing and detoxifying drugs, bacteriostasis and experimental research had all been studied for more than 8 years, revealing the research hotspots and trends of TCM in the treatment of influenza.
Conclusions: The overall research related to the treatment of influenza with TCM is relatively perfect. In the future, the close cooperation among authors and institutions should be strengthened. The molecular mechanism research, clinical and animal trials of TCM should be further studied, so as to improve the research system of TCM treatment of influenza.