Objective

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To explore the clinical diagnosis and treatment characteristics as well as the optimal schemes of Lianhua Qingwen Capsule in the treatment of upper respiratory tract infection （URTI） in the real world.

Method

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The information of 454 patients receiving Lianhua Qingwen Capsule for URTI was collected from the electronic medical data warehouse constructed by the Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine， China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences， which covered 16 large-scale tertiary Class A hospital information systems （HISs）. The harvested information was subjected to descriptive analysis， Apriori algorithm-based analysis and Louvain （BGLL） algorithm-based complex network analysis to explore the clinical medication schemes.

Result

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The commonly adopted medication schemes were heat-clearing and detoxicating Chinese medicinal injections combined with expectorants， analgesic-antipyretic drugs， or antibacterial agents in western medicine. Besides， the combination with heat-clearing and phlegm-resolving Chinese medicinals， vitamins， or hypotensive， lipid-lowering， hypoglycemic， coronary circulation-improving， or antiplatelet aggregation drugs targeting the underlying diseases was also detectable.

Conclusion

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The complex network analysis based on BGLL clustering method can be used to find out the medication rules of Lianhua Qingwen Capsule for URTI. The traditional Chinese medicine has been widely employed for resolving phlegm and relieving cough due to its good efficacy. The combination with antibiotics follows the guidelines for the use of antimicrobial agents. Drug safety is one of the most concerned aspects in clinical drug combination. The uncovering of these rules has provided a direction for exploring the optimal treatments.