ReviewCureus2026
Mapping the Research Trends and Knowledge Structure of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Musculoskeletal Disorders: A Bibliometric Analysis.
Review in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Musculoskeletal disorders represent a major global health burden and substantially impair the quality of life. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), characterized by its multi-component and multi-target therapeutic properties, has been widely used in the prevention and treatment of major musculoskeletal disorders. However, a comprehensive evaluation of the global research landscape and emerging trends in this field remains lacking. Therefore, we retrieved publications related to TCM therapy for major musculoskeletal disorders from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) published between January 2016 and August 24, 2025, and performed a bibliometric analysis using CiteSpace and VOSviewer to evaluate publication trends, leading countries and institutions, influential journals and authors, co-cited references, and research hotspots. A total of 781 publications were included. The annual number of publications showed a continuous upward trend over the past decade. China contributed the largest number of publications, whereas the United States demonstrated greater academic influence based on average citations. The Journal of Ethnopharmacology and Frontiers in Pharmacology were identified as the leading journals in this field, while Chunyan Yan and Xin-Sheng Yao were the most productive authors. Co-citation and keyword analyses identified osteoporosis, knee osteoarthritis, active compounds, and molecular signaling pathways, particularly NF-κB, as the major research hotspots. Furthermore, citation burst analysis revealed a shift from studies of single herbal medicines toward TCM formulas, accompanied by the increasing application of network pharmacology and molecular docking, highlighting a transition from efficacy-oriented research to mechanism-based investigations. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the knowledge structure and research trends of TCM for major musculoskeletal disorders. The findings provide valuable references for future research and suggest that muscle diseases and spinal disorders remain underrepresented and deserve greater attention in future investigations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.