Clinical evidence mapping analysis of Chinese medicine external treatment for Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia

Corresponding author: HE Zhengqiong, hezhengqiong7879@163.com

DOI: 10.12201/bmr.202608.00029

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  Abstract: Objective To systematically analyze the current status of clinical research on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) external therapies for Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP) using evidence mapping.Methods Relevant studies were retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, CNKI, VIP, WanFang, and SinoMed from database inception to March 2026. The Cochrane RoB 2.0 tool and AGREE II instrument were used to assess the methodological quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and clinical guidelines, respectively. The evidence distribution was visualized using bubble charts, network diagrams, and stacked bar charts, supplemented by textual descriptions.Results Research interest peaked in 2025. Sample sizes were predominantly 75–115 cases, and intervention durations were mainly 1–2 weeks.Single external therapy was the main type of intervention, with acupoint application being the most frequently used (55.3%). The core TCM syndrome was phlegm-heat obstructing the lung (42.9%). Outcome indicators focused heavily on clinical efficacy (82.2%) and clinical symptoms/signs (63.8%), whereas TCM syndrome scores (33.9%), long-term prognosis (3.9%), and quality of life (2.2%) received insufficient attention. Methodological quality assessment showed that 54.5% of the included RCTs had a high risk of bias.Conclusion TCM external therapies for MPP have advantages in shortening the disease course and reducing inflammatory responses. However, the overall quality of existing studies is low, with issues such as inadequate design standardization, fragmented evidence, and a narrow scope of outcome indicators. Future high-quality, multi-center, large-sample clinical studies are warranted to provide higher-level evidence for TCM external therapies in MPP management.

  Key words: Mycoplasma Pneumonia；Chinese medicine external treatment；Clinical evidence mapping；Visualization

  Submit time: 13 August 2026

  Copyright: The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted biomedRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
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