ABSTRACT
We investigated the correlation between search terms in electronic databases and descriptors of Kampo medicine in English articles to consider what may the best expressions to search for Kampo medicine in English literature. First, we selected Kampo articles from CENTRAL of the Cochrane Library that were originally identified in Pubmed. “Medicine, Kampo” has been used as a Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) in PubMed since 2000. However, among the 53 Kampo articles published there since 2000, only 13 have been indexed with the MeSH descriptor “Medicine, Kampo”. Second, we searched for the keywords “Kampo” and “Japanese (medicine)” in the literature, and investigated the correlation between these terms and the same “Medicine, Kampo” descriptor. As a result, a literature search with “Medicine, Kampo” was highly correlated with the concurrent use of “Kampo” and “Japanese” in the articles. Hence, we advocate the use of terms such as “Kampo medicine (traditional Japanese medicine)” to include both the words “Kampo” and “Japanese” in future English literatures on Kampo medicine.