Screening and evaluation of core prescriptions for impotence based on network robustness and data mining.

This study aims to explore and analyze ancient proven prescriptions and famous physician cases for treating impotence, so as to obtain the core prescriptions for traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) treatment of impotence. It further selected and evaluated these core prescriptions to provide a demonstration for the development of new drugs for advantageous diseases treated with TCM. Through the retrieval of ancient proven prescriptions and famous physician cases for treating impotence, a database of prescriptions for treating impotence was established, and the TCM inheritance computational platform was used to explore and analyze the medication patterns of these proven prescriptions and famous physician cases. Based on the TCM efficacy prediction platform of network robustness, the interference scores of core prescriptions in the ancient proven prescriptions and famous physician cases were calculated and analyzed. On this basis, the results of ancient proven prescriptions, famous physician cases, and computational analysis were comprehensively evaluated to determine the development priority level of the core prescriptions obtained through clustering. The results revealed that medicines in the ancient proven prescriptions and famous physician cases primarily aimed at tonifying deficiency, promoting blood circulation, eliminating blood stasis, clearing heat, and resolving external symptoms, with a particular focus on warm-natured and sweet-flavored medicines associated with the spleen, liver, kidney, and lung meridians. The core prescriptions obtained from the clustering analysis of ancient proven prescriptions and famous physician cases indicated that ancient proven prescriptions combination 1 had the most perturbing effect on the disease network as determined by network robustness analysis. A comprehensive evaluation indicated that prescription combination 1 had the most optimal development potential. TCM treatment for impotence focused on regulating the functions of the spleen, liver, kidney, and lung, aiming to tonify deficiency, with heat-clearing, blood-activating, stasis-resolving, and exterior-releasing medications supplemented. The obtained ancient proven prescriptions combination 1 exhibited the highest potential development value. The integrated strategy of "ancient proven prescriptions-famous physician cases-computational analysis" can be utilized to screen candidate TCM new drug prescriptions.