The standardization, objectification, and essence research of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome influence the modernization and international development of TCM syndrome. A total of 253 relevant publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database from 2006 to 2020 were analyzed by bibliometric and content methods. The co-occurrence analysis of countries, institutions, journals, authors, and keywords analysis were carried out by using Citespace software. The high-yield institutions and high-impact authors contributed to TCM syndrome publications were concentrated in China. Since 2012, driven by some groundbreaking publications, the number of TCM syndrome literatures has increased rapidly. According to the results of bibliometric and content analysis, research hotspots in TCM syndrome in the last 15 years can be summarized in six aspects: (a) objectification research of four TCM diagnostic methods, (b) omics technology for the essence research of TCM syndrome, (c) research on TCM syndrome evaluation scale, (d) metagenomic technology for the essence research of TCM syndrome, (e) data mining technology for TCM syndrome differentiation, and (f) systematic research on TCM syndromes of chronic hepatitis B. Emerging trends can be identified according to the most recent keywords bursts: (a) TCM syndrome diagnostic models with multiple indexes should be constructed to develop personalized medicine. (b) The connotation of TCM syndrome should be verified through "syndrome detecting from recipe used," and the screened potential markers of TCM syndrome need clinical verification. (c) The intervention and integration of multi-disciplines is expected to find a new breakthrough in the research of TCM syndrome.
摘要: 中医证候的规范化、客观化和本质研究影响中医证候的现代化和国际化发展。本研究对 2006 年-2020 年收录于 Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) 数据库 Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) 的253篇相关文献 (224篇论著和29篇综述) 进行了文献计量学和内容分析法分析，采用Citespace软件对国家、机构、期刊、作者和关键词进行共现分析。结果显示，中医证候的规范化、客观化和本质研究的高产机构和高影响力作者主要集中在中国；在 2012 年刊发的相关奠基性文献的推动下, 相关研究文献数量迅速增加。根据文献计量学和内容分析法的结果，将近 15 年来关于中医证候的规范化、客观化和本质的研究热点归纳为六个方面: (1) 中医四诊的客观化研究，(2) 组学技术在中医证候本质研究中的应用，(3) 中医证候评价量表研究，(4) 宏基因组技术在中医证候本质研究中的应用，(5) 数据挖掘技术在中医证候分型中的应用，(6) 慢性乙型肝炎中医证候的系统研究。根据新近出现的高频关键词预测研究趋势:(1) 在中医理论指导下，寻找多指标相互合参的证候诊断模型，延伸和拓展传统四诊方法，发展个性化医疗；(2) 立足于临床实际和应用，通过“以方测证”的疗效验证证候的内涵，筛选的证候潜在标志物需大样本临床验证； (3) 多学科的介入和整合有望在中医证候研究中找到新的突破。.
Keywords: bibliometric analysis; content analysis; objectification; standardization; traditional Chinese medicine syndrome.
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