Rule-based text mining of traditional Chinese medicine patterns with Chinese herbal medicines and symptoms on cirrhosis

Through several thousands years of clinical research and theoretical thoughts, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has accumulated rich experiences on cirrhosis. However, the usage of Chinese herbal medicines in formulae are flexible in TCM clinical practice according to pattern differentiation. So, it is important to get the composition rules of Chinese herbal medicines through literatures. Based on the keyword list of Chinese herbal medicine, pattern, and symptoms, through the keyword filtering skill, we got the lists of Chinese herbal medicines. However, for Chinese herbal medicines, they are not only mentioned in the plain format of herb names, but also densely described in the form of formulae (also called Chu-Fang, Yao-Fang or Tang-Yao in Chinese). As formulae are composed by Chinese herbal medicines according the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, so, it is necessary to filtering them out and de-compose them back into specified Chinese herbal medicines. In this study, take cirrhosis for example, we explored the composition-rules of Chinese herbal medicines and the network of TCM pattern with them. By doing this, we might get a deeper understanding of composition-rules of Chinese herbal medicines in clinical practice which might be a better reference for both clinical practise and medical research.