ABSTRACT
Objective To study the medication regularity of compound herbal formulae in treating patients with advanced non-small lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods Compound herbal formulae published on journals for the treatment of NSCLC were searched and collected from CBM, CNKI, and Wanfang Data for database establishment. Frequency analysis, cluster analysis, and association rule analysis were used for data mining, and regularity of main Chinese medicinal herbs and herbal pairs (combinations) were investigated. Results There were 107 compound herbal formulae (involving 193 Chinese medicinal herbs and 1298 frequency) for NSCLC. 42 Chinese medicinal herbs were used for more than 9 times. Cluster analysis on the tastes and properties of the 42 Chinese medicinal herbs found that, among the four qi, cold showed the highest frequency (409);among the five tastes, sweet showed the highest frequency (627);among the meridians, lung meridian showed the highest frequency (546). Cluster analysis divided main Chinese medicinal herbs into 9 types, including yin-nourishing herbs, heat-clearing herbs, qi-tonifying herbs, blood-enriching herbs, blood circulation activating herbs, hemostasis herbs, phlegm-reducing herbs, qi-descending herbs, lung-astringing herbs. Associate rule analysis obtained 26 rules for Chinese medicinal herbal pairs, 18 rules for Chinese medicinal herbal combination, most of which were combinations for tonifying qi, nourishing yin, and clearing heat. Conclusion Chinese compound herbal formulae for the treatment of NSCLC mainly use Chinese medicinal herbs with properties of cold and mildness, with the tastes of sweet and bitter, with meridians of lung, spleen, and stomach, with the treatment of tonifying qi, nourishing yin, and detoxication.