Abstract:Objective To investigate the medication patterns of Chinese medicine in treating diabetic nephronpathy through data mining analysis. Methods A comprehensive collection of medical prescriptions for Chinese medicine treatment of diabetic nephropathy was gathered from databases including CNKI, VIP, Wanfang, and the Chinese Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine Literature Database from January 2013 to December 2024. An Excel-based database was constructed, and a Chinese medicine data mining system was applied to conduct frequency analysis, medicinal nature and flaver classification, meridian entry, efficacy categorization, hierarchical clustering, association rules, and complex network analysis. The compatibility patterns and significance within the same cluster were also explored. Results According to established inclusion and exclusion criteria, 327 articles on Chinese medicine treatment for diabetic nephropathy were selected, involving 327 prescriptions and 205 types of herbs with a cumulative usage frequency of 2 624 times. The top ten most frequently used herbs are Astragalus, Poria, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Dioscorea, Cornus officinalis, Angelica sinensis, Rheum palmatum, Rehmannia glutinosa, Atractylodes macrocephala, and ligusticum chuanxiong. These herbs predominantly exhibit cold or warm properties and are mainly sweet or bitter in flaver, mostly entering the liver, kidney, and spleen entry. The 205 herbs can be categorized into 17 classes based on their efficacy, with the highest frequencies being tonifying herbs, blood-activating and stasis-resolving herbs, urine excretion to strain off dampness herbs, heat-clearing herbs, and astringent herbs. The Apriori algorithm was used to mine herb pair combinations, and 29 association rules were finally obtained. Among them, the most frequent two-herb combinations were Astragalus - Poria, Astragalus - Salvia miltiorrhiza, Astragalus - Angelica sinensis, Astragalus -Dioscorea, and Astragalus-Cornus officinalis；the most frequent three-herb combinations were Astragalus-Poria-Cornus officinalis, Astragalus - Poria - Dioscorea, Astragalus - Poria - Alisma, Astragalus - Dioscorea - Salvia miltiorrhiza, and Astragalus-Dioscorea-Alisma. Complex system entropy clustering identified 10 core Chinese medicine combinations for treating diabetic nephropathy, while 5 new formulae were discovered by entropy clustering and improved mutual information method. Conclusion Astragalus, Poria, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Dioscorea, and Cornus officinalis are among the high-frequency core medications used by modern physicians in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy. Chinese medicine treatments for diabetic nephropathy mainly focus on tonifying drugs, complemented by blood-activating and stasis-resolving drugs, diuretic and dampness-resolving drugs, heat-clearing drugs, and astringent drugs to achieve both symptomatic and radical treatment. The pairing of drugs, core combinations, and new formula combinations further illuminate the common compatibility rules of Chinese medicine in treating diabetic nephropathy, providing new perspectives and methodologies for its treatment.