Analysis of the Rule of TCM Compatibility in TCM Prescriptions Containing Ginseng Radix ET Rhizoma in Ancient Books for Xiaoke Bing

BACKGROUND: TCM considers that diabetes belongs to the scope of Xiaoke Bing. Compound prescriptions are characteristics of TCM. For a certain medicine, its compatibility with different medicines can exert different efficacies in different prescriptions. Using the TCM compound prescriptions containing Ginseng Radix ET Rhizoma in ancient books for Xiaoke Bing as an example, this study introduces new methods to investigate the rule of TCM compatibility. METHODS: Frequency analysis was accomplished by programs written in Perl. The R, Cytoscape, and DpClus software were used to carry out the association rules analysis, the construction of the TCM interconnection network, and the graph clustering analysis, respectively. RESULTS: Frequency analysis ranked the frequencies of medicine, medicinal flavors, properties, and meridian attributions, and it was found that some of them are significantly higher than others. Six association rules were obtained. The TCM interconnection network showed that there are close medicine associations among prescriptions, and we got 17 categories of closely related prescriptions from the network. CONCLUSIONS: Ginseng Radix ET Rhizoma was widely used in treating Xiaoke Bing. Our results are consistent with the understanding of Xiaoke Bing in TCM; hence, it is demonstrated that the methods are effective for exploring the rule of TCM usage in prescriptions. This analysis could provide references for the treatment of diabetes.