Background: Data mining technology used in the field of medicine has been widely studied by scholars all over the world. But there is little research on medical data mining (MDM) from the perspectives of bibliometrics and visualization, and the research topics and development trends in this field are still unclear. Methods: This paper has applied bibliometric visualization software tools, VOSviewer 1.6.10 and CiteSpace V, to study the citation characteristics, international cooperation, author cooperation, and geographical distribution of the MDM. Results: A total of 1575 documents are obtained, and the most frequent document type is article (1376). SHAN NH is the most productive author, with the highest number of publications of 12, and the Gillies's article (750 times citation) is the most cited paper. The most productive country and institution in MDM is the USA (559) and US FDA (35), respectively. The Journal of Biomedical Informatics, Expert Systems with Applications and Journal of Medical Systems are the most productive journals, which reflected the nature of the research, and keywords “classification (790)” and “system (576)” have the strongest strength. The hot topics in MDM are drug discovery, medical imaging, vaccine safety, and so on. The 3 frontier topics are reporting system, precision medicine, and inflammation, and would be the foci of future research. Conclusion: The present study provides a panoramic view of data mining methods applied in medicine by visualization and bibliometrics. Analysis of authors, journals, institutions, and countries could provide reference for researchers who are fresh to the field in different ways. Researchers may also consider the emerging trends when deciding the direction of their study.

Review question / Objective: Our study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture on insomnia in patients with COVID-19. Condition being studied: Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) refers to an infectious disease caused by the SARS-C o V -2 , w h o s e p r i m a r y c l i n i c a l m a n i f e s t a t i o n s a r e e l e v a t e d b o d y temperature, cough, dyspnea, and malaise, and some critically ill patients may suffer from serious complications such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with an incubation period of 1-14 days.

Background: This review will assess current evidence related to the effectiveness and safety of acupoint catgut embedding therapy for functional constipation (FC) and provide efficacy assessments for clinical applications. Methods: We will search the following databases for relevant trials: PubMed, EMBASE OVID, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, OVID MEDLINE, Web of Science, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane library, and Scopus. We will also search the following Chinese databases for trials published in the Chinese literature: China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database (CNKI), Chinese Scientific Journals Database, Wan Fang Database, Chinese Biomedicine and other resources from inception to December 2020. Only randomized controlled trials comparing acupoint catgut embedding versus acupuncture or sham acupuncture or placebo or other therapies will be included. The outcomes involved mean spontaneous bowel movements, complete spontaneous bowel movements, the Bristol Stool Form Scale, the Cleveland Clinic Score, Patient Assessment of Constipation symptom and so on. The risk of bias assessment and quality of evidence for outcomes will be appraised using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation guidelines. RevMan 5.3 software will be employed for the meta-analysis. Results: This work will compare and arrange the comparative efficacy of acupoint catgut embedding with different treatments for FC by summarizing the current evidences. Conclusion: The results of this meta-analysis may help doctors determine the best treatments for patients to manage FC. Ethics and dissemination: This is a protocol with no patient recruitment and personal information collection, approval by the ethics committee is not required. OSF Registration number: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/XTKE2.

Background: It is extremely easy for rectal prolapse to relapse with surgery alone. Clinical practice indicates that Buzhong Yiqi decoction combined with surgery has certain therapeutic advantages, while there is a lack of evidence-based medicine support. This study aimed to systematically investigate the efficacy and safety of Buzhong Yiqi decoction combined with surgery in the treatment of rectal prolapse. Methods: The English databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library) and Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure [CNKI], Wanfang, China Science and Technology Journal Database [VIP], China Biology Medicine disc) were searched by computer. In addition, Baidu Scholar and Google Scholar were searched manually. A randomized controlled clinical study of Buzhong Yiqi decoction combined with surgery in the treatment of rectal prolapse was performed from the establishment of databases to September 2020. Two investigators independently conducted data extraction and assessed the literature quality of the included studies. The Revman5.3 software was used for meta-analysis of the included literature. Results: The efficacy and safety of Buzhong Yiqi decoction combined with surgery in the treatment of rectal prolapse were evaluated in terms of efficiency, symptom score, recurrence rate, adverse reaction rate, and so on. Conclusions: Thisstudy provides reliable evidence-based support for the clinical application of Buzhong Yiqi decoction combined with surgery in the treatment of rectal prolapse. OSF Registration number: DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/K3PJX.

Review question / Objective: Our study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for psoriasis vulgaris. Condition being studied: Psoriasis vulgaris (PV) refers to a common chronic, immune-mediated inflammatory skin disease with red papules or plaques covered with silvery-white scales as the main lesion manifestation, which is most prevalent on the extensor surfaces of the extremities and caudal sacral region. It tends to break out in autumn and winter and relapse in summer. According to the International Federation of Psoriasis Associations (IFPA), 3% of the global population, about 125 million people, are afflicted by psoriasis and the proportion of PV patients exceeds 97% of the total psoriasis patients. Psoriasis vulgaris affects the physical, psychological, and even social activities of patients, for example, PV patients tend to experience depression, distress, and anxiety from occupation and daily life. Furthermore, its high medical costs have emerged as a serious global health burden. A multitude of clinical trials revealed that acupuncture or acupuncture-related therapy could exert promising and facilitating effects on PV treatment, such as PASI scores improvement, fewer side effects, the extension of recurrence time, and reduction of recurrence rate. Besides, it could facilitate the treatment of psoriasis in an effective and convenient way. Some studies have shown that acupuncture treatment could modulate the immune response to psoriasis: for example, by reducing levels of IL-8, TNF-α. INPLASY registration number: This protocol was registered with the International Platform of Registered Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (INPLASY) on 09 January 2022 and was last updated on 09 January 2022 (registration number INPLASY202210042).