Abstract:Objective:To explore the research status and hot spots of using traditional Chinese (TCM) medicine to treat alopecia areata based on bibliometrics. Methods:Chinese literature on the treatment of alopecia areata by TCM published on CNKI from January 1,2000 to December 31,2021 were retrieved. The number of published papers in different years and the trend were analyzed. The author cooperation network diagram,institutional cooperation network diagram and keyword knowledge map,including keyword co- occurrence,clustering and emergence network diagram,for the treatment of alopecia areata by TCM were drawn via CiteSpace5.8.R3 software. Results : A total of 1 294 pieces of Chinese literature were retrieved,and 616 pieces were included after identifiable format conversion and de-weighting,involving 286 research institutions and 493 keywords. Within the retrieval time range,the overall annual publication volume was stable,with numbers of about 30 articles per year. The small peak of publication volume was in 2009 and 2011,and the 2 troughs were in 2005 and 2017,among which the lowest was in 2017. XUAN Guowei and CHEN Dacan published the most articles,with 11 and 10 articles respectively,and some authors from this field were related with each other,and were closely related to the authors with more articles. According to the analysis of research institutions,52 institutions published more than or equal to 2 articles, and the top 5 were Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine,Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine,Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine. In the co-occurrence network, the keywords with higher frequency were TCM therapy,plum-blossom needling,clinical observation, integrated Chinese and western medicine therapy,acupuncture therapy,etc. A total of 10 cluster labels were formed in the keyword cluster analysis,which reflected that plum-blossom needling,TCM therapy, therapeutic effect,liver and kidney insufficiency,and clinical experience were the main hot spots in the literature in this field. The top 5 keywords of emergent rate were integrated Chinese and western medicine therapy, famous physicians' experience, Shengfa Decoction, medical cases, and liver and kidney insufficiency. Conclusion:The volumn of the treatment of alopecia areata by TCM is generally insufficient. In the future,it is necessary to further deepen the research in this field,strengthen the team and regional cooperation,actively explore the mechanism of action and basic research direction,and jointly promote the in-depth development of the treatment of alopecia areata by TCM.