Objective To collect the prescription on external treatment of cancer pain with traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) of literature, published on domestic medical journals in recent 20 years, by cluster analysis method. Methods Prescriptions in literature from 1997 to 2017 by the database of CNKI, VIP, CBM on external treatment of cancer pain with TCM were searched, and a database of the literature that meets the inclusion criteria was established. The cluster analysis was used for frequency and medicinal prope...