Ang Lin, Lee Hye Won, Kim Anna, Choi Jun-Yong, Lee Myeong Soo
Clinical Medicine Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon, Korea.
Korean Convergence Medicine, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Infect Drug Resist. 2021 May 18;14:1833-1844. doi: 10.2147/IDR.S305176. eCollection 2021.
In this study, we aimed to identify the pattern and combination of herbs used in the formulae recommended for treating different stages of COVID-19 using a network analysis approach.
The herbal formulae recommended by official guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 are included in the present analysis. To describe the tendency of herbs to form a "herb pair", we computed the mutual information (MI) value and distance-based mutual information model (DMIM) score. We also performed modularity, degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality analysis. Network analyses were performed and visualized for each disease stage.
A total of 142 herbal formulae comprising 416 herbs were analyzed. All possible herbal pairs were examined, and the top frequently used herbal pairs were identified for each disease stage. The herb is only identified in one herb pair, even though this herb is identified as one of the herbs with high frequency of use for every disease stage. This suggests that the DMIM score could be used to identify the optimal combination rule of herbal formulae by achieving a balance among the herbs' frequency and relative distance in herbal formulae.
Our results presented the prescription patterns and herbal combinations of the herbal formulae recommended for the treatment of COVID-19. This study may provide new insights and ideas for clinical research in the future.
在本研究中，我们旨在使用网络分析方法确定推荐用于治疗新冠肺炎不同阶段的方剂中所使用草药的模式和组合。
本分析纳入了官方指南推荐的用于治疗新冠肺炎的草药方剂。为了描述草药形成“药对”的趋势，我们计算了互信息（MI）值和基于距离的互信息模型（DMIM）得分。我们还进行了模块化、度、介数和紧密中心性分析。对每个疾病阶段进行了网络分析并可视化。
共分析了包含416种草药的142个草药方剂。检查了所有可能的草药对，并确定了每个疾病阶段最常用的草药对。该草药仅在一个药对中被识别出来，尽管它在每个疾病阶段都被确定为使用频率较高的草药之一。这表明DMIM得分可通过在草药方剂中平衡草药的频率和相对距离来确定草药方剂的最佳组合规则。
我们的结果展示了推荐用于治疗新冠肺炎的草药方剂的处方模式和草药组合。本研究可能为未来的临床研究提供新的见解和思路。
