Abstract: Objective To keep track of the current research and developments related to adverse cardiac reactions caused by traditional Chinese medicine through visual analysis. Methods Literature that was published between January 1, 1980 and January 31, 2022 and concerned with adverse cardiac reactions caused by traditional Chinese medicines was retrieved from CNKI, Wanfang and VIP databases respectively. CiteSpace5.8.R2 software was used to analyze the years of publication, journals, authors, institutions and key words. Results The number of articles published in the field of cardiotoxicity caused by traditional Chinese medicines gradually increased. Six stable core research teams were formed in this field, but there was little collaboration between them. The number of publications by Feng Qun and Guan Yuechen respectively was the largest, which played an important role in promoting the development of this field. Research focused on the mechanism prediction of ADR induced by TCM, the toxicity reduction of TCM processing and compatibility, and the evaluation indexes of cardiotoxicity (electrocardiograms, cardiomyocytes and ion channels). Conclusion There has been more research on adverse cardiac reactions caused by traditional Chinese medicines, especially on the cardiotoxicity of toxic traditional Chinese medicines and the combination of traditional Chinese medicines. Emergent analysis suggests that more effort will be made to study the evaluation indexes of cardiotoxicity of TCM, establish the evaluation system of TCM research and development, elucidate the molecular mechanism of TCM compatibility and toxicity reduction based on zebrafish models, and find out how various markers play a synergistic or antagonistic role.

Key words: Chinese medicine, adverse cardiac reactions, cardiotoxicity, CiteSpace, visualization analysis