Backgrounds: Threatened abortion (TA) is the most common complication during early pregnancy affecting 20%-25% pregnancies. A variety of Chinese herbal medicines have shown good protective effects against TA.
Objective: To analyze the different prescriptions for TA and summarize the medication rules for such treatment.
Methods: Data mining methods including frequency analysis, cluster analysis, factor analysis and association rule learning were used in this study.
Results: In total, 171 herbs and 398 formulas were collected. The most frequently used herbs are Dipsaci Radix (Xuduan, accounts for 7.58%). The top three categories were deficiency-tonifying herbs (29.24%), wind-damp dispelling herbs (12.87%) and heat-clearing herbs (9.94%). Eleven factors and 8 clusters with clinical significance for prescription were formed by factor and cluster analyses.
Conclusions: Tonification methods including spleen and kidney nourishment are the main principles for TA treatment and Shoutai Pill can be used as the basic formula for clinical addition or subtraction.
Keywords: Data mining; Prescription rules; TCM; Threatened abortion.
Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.