Exploring basic treatment principles for liver cancer within Chinese herbal medicine through text mining

As the fifth most common malignancy, liver cancer has a high incidence. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for thousands of years. Many herbal formulae have been used in treating liver cancer and proved to be safe and effective in some degree. Yet the principles of treating liver cancer with CHMs are hard to manage due to the complexity of TCM theory and flexibility of TCM clinical practices. In this study, a practical text mining method was deployed based on a comprehensive collection of literatures in order to explore the treatment principles. Networks of TCM patterns and CHMs which were most frequently used in liver cancer treatment were built-up and analyzed; three major treatment principles were explored from 53,499 records of literature: (1) benefiting qi or replenishing blood; (2) promoting blood circulation for removing blood stasis; (3) clearing heat and promoting diuresis. These provided an accessible way for understanding the treatment principles for liver cancer with CHMs.