Standardization, objectification, and essence research of traditional Chinese medicine syndrome: A 15‐year bibliometric and content analysis from 2006 to 2020 in Web of Science database

Abstract

The standardization, objectification, and essence research of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome influence the modernization and international development of TCM syndrome. A total of 253 relevant publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database from 2006 to 2020 were analyzed by bibliometric and content methods. The co‐occurrence analysis of countries, institutions, journals, authors, and keywords analysis were carried out by using Citespace software. The high‐yield institutions and high‐impact authors contributed to TCM syndrome publications were concentrated in China. Since 2012, driven by some groundbreaking publications, the number of TCM syndrome literatures has increased rapidly. According to the results of bibliometric and content analysis, research hotspots in TCM syndrome in the last 15 years can be summarized in six aspects: (a) objectification research of four TCM diagnostic methods, (b) omics technology for the essence research of TCM syndrome, (c) research on TCM syndrome evaluation scale, (d) metagenomic technology for the essence research of TCM syndrome, (e) data mining technology for TCM syndrome differentiation, and (f) systematic research on TCM syndromes of chronic hepatitis B. Emerging trends can be identified according to the most recent keywords bursts: (a) TCM syndrome diagnostic models with multiple indexes should be constructed to develop personalized medicine. (b) The connotation of TCM syndrome should be verified through “syndrome detecting from recipe used,” and the screened potential markers of TCM syndrome need clinical verification. (c) The intervention and integration of multi‐disciplines is expected to find a new breakthrough in the research of TCM syndrome.

Traditional Chinese medicine in human diseases treatment: New insights of their potential mechanisms

“…The standardization, objectification, and essence of TCM studies are the foundation of TCM modernization and globalization. To understand the current state of knowledge in this area of research, Liu and Li (2023) analyzed TCM syndrome-related publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database from 2006 to 2020. They found that the research hotspots of TCM in the past 15 years included six aspects, namely, the objectification research of the four TCM diagnostic methodologies, the application of omics technology in the field of TCM research, research on TCM syndrome evaluation scale, the application of metagenomic technology in TCM syndrome, the application of data mining technology in TCM syndrome differentiation, and the systematic research on the applications of TCM syndromes in chronic hepatitis B.…”

The yin, yang, and anatomy of Traditional Chinese Medicine inThe Anatomical Record

“…However, despite the longevity of the practice in Asia, TCM has only recently become broadly discussed internationally (e.g., Han et al, 2023; Lam et al, 2019; Zhang & Li, 2021). The past 10 years have seen a rapid increase in the number of TCM syndrome papers published (Liu & Li, 2023), showing a growing increased interest around the world in TCM. Similarly, the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic was also associated with a jump in TCM publications, which mainly focused on techniques and traditional herbs that may help to alleviate COVID‐19 symptoms, as a supplement to treatment by allopathic medicine (e.g., Da et al, 2021; Han et al, 2023).…”