key: cord-0868817-6aot1fnz authors: Yang, Ke-Lu; Jin, Xin-Yao; Gao, Ya; Xie, Jin; Liu, Ming; Zhang, Jun-Hua; Tian, Jin-Hui title: Bibliometric analysis of researches on traditional Chinese medicine for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) date: 2020-07-29 journal: Integr Med Res DOI: 10.1016/j.imr.2020.100490 sha: 94cd73b8c1e894fdef7b5cabe1f292b9181d7506 doc_id: 868817 cord_uid: 6aot1fnz BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a worldwide pandemic, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played an important role in response. We aimed to analyze the published literature on TCM for COVID-19, and provide reference for later research. METHODS: This study searched the CBM, CNKI, PubMed, and EMBASE from its establishment to March 11, 2020. VOSviewer 1.6.11 and gCLUTO 2.0 software were used to visually analyze the included studies. RESULTS: A total of 309 studies were included, including 61 journals, 1441 authors, 277 institutions, and 27 provinces. Cooperation among regions was closer, but the teamwork of institutions and authors were more likely to be confined to the same region. Among the authors with frequency greater than two (65 authors), only 19 authors who had connection with others. More than 70% (358/491) of keywords only presented once, and 20 keywords shown more than 10 times. Five research topics were identified: Data mining method based analysis on the medication law of Chinese medicine in prevention and management of COVID-19, exploration of active compounds of Chinese medicine for COVID-19 treatment based on network pharmacology and molecular docking, expert consensus and interpretation of COVID-19 treatment, research on the etiology and pathogenesis of COVID-19, and clinical research of TCM for COVID-19 treatment. CONCLUSION: The research hotspots were scattered, and the collaboration between authors and institutions needed to be further strengthened. To improve the quality and efficiency of research output, the integration of scientific research and resources, as well as scientific collaboration is needed. disease prevention and treatment has achieved profound effects. Integrated traditional Chinese medicine (ITCM) has played a pivotal role in improving and alleviating clinical symptoms 1, 2 . In the Guideline of Diagnosis and Treatment of COVID-19 (7 th Edition) 3 , a number of TCM prescriptions and proprietary Chinese medicines were recommended for use in patients in clinical observation and severe and critically-ill patients. Researchers have continuously deepened their exploration into the etiology, pathogenesis, treatment principles, and treatment experience as well as published a large number of studies [4] [5] [6] . However, with the increasing demand for comprehensive evidence, it is necessary to comb and summarize the published studies. In order to analyze the published studies on TCM for COVID-19, bibliometric analysis is used, which is a quantitative analysis combining mathematics and statistics, focusing on the bibliometric characteristics of research in a particular field, and helping investigators grasp the development priorities and trends in the field and guiding their follow-up work 7, 8 . Bibliometric analysis was already used in the field of TCM to explore the research trends and reveal hot topics 9, 10 . In this study, the published journals, authors, provinces, institutions and keywords of published studies on prevention and treatment of COVID-19 by TCM in China were analyzed, so as to provide intuitive basis and reference for the later research. Search strategies were performed in the Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), PubMed, and EMBASE up to 11th March 2020 by using keywords "2019-nCoV", "SARS-CoV-2", "NCP", "COVID-19", "new coronavirus pneumonia", "corona virus disease 2019", "traditional Chinese medicine", and "integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine". We included studies on TCM for COVID-19, and excluded duplicate publications, conference abstracts, and news reports. Independently, two reviewers evaluated the title and abstract, and a third reviewer evaluated the discrepant results. VOSviewer 1.6.11 (Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands) was used to extract the journals, authors, provinces, and institutions of included studies, and generated network maps for them as well as cluster analysis. The nodes in network map represented the number of publications or frequency, and the links between nodes represented relationships such as collaboration or co-occurrence. Different colors of nodes represented different clusters 11, 12 . We also generated a density map of main keywords, in which the brightness of the color was positively correlated with the J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f frequency of keywords. Bibliographic information co-occurrence mining system (BICOMS) and gCLUTO 2.0 were used to conduct the cluster analysis of main keywords and design a visual surface graph. In the visual surface graph, the synthesized Gaussian curves were added together to form a visual hill map. Each hill was mainly used as a rough estimate of the internal data distribution of each cluster, where the height of the hill was proportional to the intra-class similarity, the volume was proportional to the number of objects contained in the cluster, the color of the hill is related to the internal standard deviation of the cluster (the darker the color, the smaller the deviation), and only the color of the summit made sense 13, 14 . We also summarized the research topic based on the high-frequency words and source articles. Twenty-seven provinces and municipalities in China were included in studies on TCM for COVID-19 (Fig 1A) , and we generated a network map of the included provinces and municipalities (Fig. 1B) Table 2 , containing ten universities, ten hospitals and one pharmaceutical firm. Network map of institutions with frequency greater than two was shown in Four hundred and ninety-one keywords were extracted from the included studies. There were 358 keywords only presented once, and 20 keywords shown more than 10 times ( Table 3) . Density map was drawn for the keywords with frequency greater than J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f four (Fig. 4) . Forty-three nodes were shown in the map, and the brightest two were COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, located in the center of the map as well, and surrounded by TCM, cold dampness pestilence, prevention and control, treatment, pneumonia, severe illness, etc. The edge of the map was relatively dark, containing clinical research, angiotensin converting enzyme 2, data mining, five elements and six pathogens, TCM ancient books, etc. We conducted a cluster analysis of keywords with frequency more than six, and generated a visual hill map (Supplement 1) which contained five themes on TCM for COVID-19. Their related parameters were presented in Table 4 . Journals with the number of publications of more than three and journals with only one publication made up about one-third each, which indicates that although there were some differences among journals involved, the publication of studies were relatively concentrated. Nearly half of the top 10 productive journals were included in CSCD which is an important database in China including more than 1,000 core journals in Chinese and English published in the fields of medicine, health engineering, mathematical physics, and so on. As for the provinces involved, more than 60% of provinces published over four studies, and close cooperation between the different provinces was found, which is conducive to accelerating the quantity and quality of scientific and technological achievements. However, the connection between institutions was not confined to the same province, which may greatly improve the efficiency of scientific research by timely sharing of information to other regions, thus promoting researches of COVID-19. However, geographical distance is still the main factor affecting regional scientific research cooperation, and researchers from various provinces are more inclined to seek cooperation within the region. Authors in the same area were naturally connected closer, and the connection between two research teams was mainly through one or two key authors. Hence, cooperation between provinces still needs to be strengthened. Among the involved institutions, affiliated hospitals of universities occupied a larger quantity and was closely associated with the universities, which showed There are several limitations. The included studies were retrieved from four databases only. However, these four databases are the major electronic databases which have met the needs of this study. Another limitation was that most of the included studies were in Chinese and English, so some studies in other language may not be included, which might cause publication bias to some extent. In conclusion, the research hotspots in this field are still scattered and extensive, however, there will be more concentrated research This work received no funding. This work did not require an ethical approval as it does not involve any human or animal research. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Clinical observation on 34 patients with Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (COVID-19) treated with intergrated traditional Chinese and western medicine Clinical diagnosis and integrated treatment of traditional Chinese and western medicine for confirmed patients with coronavirus disease 2019 in Yangzhou area of Jiangsu Province State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and National Health Commission. Guideline of Diagnosis and Treatment of COVID-19 Beijing Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Prevention and Treatment Plan on Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing (Trial Third Edition) Traditional Chinese medicine treatment plan for the patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia in Tianjin area Thinking on Etiology and Pathogenesis of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia in Traditional Chinese Medicine Visualizing a field of research: A methodology of systematic scientometric reviews The bibliometric analysis of scholarly production: How great is the impact Bibliometric Analysis of Research Assessing the Use of Acupuncture for Pain Treatment Over the Past 20 Bibliometric Analysis of Moxibustion Research Trends over the Past 20 Years Study of international anticancer research trends via co-word and document co-citation visualization analysis Bibliometric analysis of global research on PD-1 and PD-L1 in the field of cancer Visualization studies of research subjects of China's national essential drug system Key wordsbased analysis of subjects in Chinese papers on Kashin-Beck disease Analysis on rules of TCM prescriptions in treating and preventing COVID-19 based on data mining Data Mining of Preventive Herbal Prescriptions for COVID-19 and Exploration of Their Medication Thoughts Study on Medication Laws of Anti-COVID-19 Based on Data Mining Study on the Active Compounds of Yupingfeng Powder in the Treatment of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (COVID-19) based on Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking Method Investigating mechanism of Qingfei Dayuan Granules for treatment of COVID-19 based on network pharmacology and molecular docking Exploration on active compounds of Feiduqing for treatment of COVID-19 based on network pharmacology and molecular docking The Review of "The Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for 2019-nCoV (The Seventh Trial Edition Discussion on the etiology, pathogenesis and treatment of covid-19 in Chinese medicine Clinical Features and Syndrome Differentiation of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia in Traditional Chinese Medicine Current status of clinical trial registration regarding coronavirus disease 2019 Clinical observation of treating COVID-19 with Jinhuaqinggan powder Clinical study on 37 case of COVID-19 treated with integrated traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Exploration of potential clinical application value and mechanism of Chinese materia medica for tonifying qi and activating blood in COVID-19 with hypoxemia We thank Amanda Gramacy, from University of California San Francisco, School of Dentistry, for assistance with language editing. The data will be made available upon request. Supplement 1. Visual hill map of main keywords, can be found in the online version, at _______.