Study on the medication rule of Chinese medicine compound oral administration for the treatment of alopecia areata based on the national patent database

Objective To explore the medication rules of patented Chinese medicine compounds for oral administration in treating alopecia areata (AA), and provide reference for the treatment of AA with Chinese medicine and the development of new drugs. Methods The data of patented Chinese medicine compounds for treating AA were searched from the website of China Patent Publication Announcement of the State Intellectual Property Office. Microsoft Excel 2016 software was used to establish a database, and frequency, nature, taste, and meridian tropism statistics were performed. Apriori association rule modeling analysis was conducted. Cytoscape 3.9.1 software was used to construct the core complex network of Chinese medicines. IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 software was used for systematic cluster analysis of drugs in the core network. Results A total of 134 oral administration compound formulas meeting the requirements were screened, involving 307 Chinese herbs. Among them, the highfrequency Chinese herbs in oral administration compound formulas included Angelica Sinensis(76 times), Radix Rehmanniae Recens (73 times), Radix Rehmanniae Praeparata(48 times), and Ligusticum chuanxiong (47 times). The main effects of drugs were tonification deficiency and blood circulation, and the main nature was warmness. The main tastes were sweet and bitter, and the main meridians were liver, lung, and kidney meridians. The high confidence association rules in compound formulas mainly combined Angelica Sinensis with Radix Rehmanniae Recens, Radix Rehmanniae Praeparata, etc. Eight new prescriptions were obtained through cluster analysis. Conclusion The national patented Chinese medicine compound oral administration for treating AA mainly focuses on tonifying liver and kidney, supplementing Qi and nourishing blood, combined with promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis, clearing heat, cooling blood, and expelling wind herbs.