Objective: To summarize the commonly used prescriptions and highly frequently used herbal pairs for functional dyspepsia (FD) from literatures. Method: A total of 4 055 literatures related to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the treatment of functional dyspepsia from 1995 to 2015 were retrieved

including 593 involving syndrome differentiation

which were taken as the research object. Through the analysis

eight common syndrome types of functional dyspepsia are liver-stomach disharmony syndrome

spleen and stomach deficiency syndrome

liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome

liver depression and Qi stagnation syndrome

spleen deficiency and Qi stagnation syndrome

intermingled cold and heat syndrome

food stagnation syndrome

and spleen and stomach deficiency-cold syndrome. Information of prescriptions and common herbal pairs used for syndrome differentiation were extracted to establish a Microsoft Excel 2003 database. Efforts were made to enter in SPSS 11.5 software for statistics

make a frequency analysis by using Crosstabs methods

and conduct data mining for the literatures. Result: FD with liver and stomach syndrome was mainly treated with Chaihu Shugan San; spleen and stomach deficiency syndrome was mainly treated with Xiangsha Liujunzi Tang; liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome was commonly treated with Xiaoyao San; liver depression and Qi stagnation syndrome was principally treated with Chaihu Shugan San; spleen deficiency and Qi stagnation syndrome was principally treated with Xiangsha Liujunzi Tang; intermingled cold and heat syndrome was mostly treated with Banxia Xiexin Tang; food stagnation syndrome was mainly treated with Baohewan; and spleen and stomach deficiency-cold syndrome was mostly treated with Fuzi Lizhong Tang. There were 17 high-frequency herbal pairs used in the literatures

including Poria-Atractylodis Macrocephalae

Rhizama Bupleuri Radix-Paeoniae Radix Alba

Codonopsis Radix-Poria

and Poria- Aurantii Fructus. Conclusion: TCMs have unique advantages in the treatment of functional dyspepsia. With overall concept and syndrome differentiation as the basic characteristics

TCM doctors always make treatment based on overall syndrome differentiation

and combine herbs based on main prescriptions and medicines

so as to expand the range of treatment

play a complementary role

and prevent adverse effects of the main medicine.