• • A total of 710 Chinese and 471 English publications met inclusion criteria, revealing a sustained growth trajectory with China as the primary contributor; this imbalance signals a critical need for cross-regional collaboration to avoid redundant domestic research and to access diverse patient cohorts for global regulatory acceptance.
• • Keyword co-occurrence analysis demonstrates that both Chinese and English literature prioritize sinomenine's anti-arthritis mechanisms, while Chinese studies uniquely address extraction, quality standards, and formulation development; this bifurcation indicates that domestic research retains a strong pharmaceutical manufacturing focus, whereas international efforts concentrate on mechanistic elucidation, potentially delaying the translation of novel delivery systems into clinical practice.
• • The core research teams have formed but remain largely institution-bound or regionally clustered, with minimal cross-regional cooperation; this insularity restricts access to multi-omics platforms and advanced technologies such as spatial transcriptomics and single-cell sequencing, which are essential for resolving sinomenine's action within the drug-host-microbiome network.
• • Future breakthroughs are projected in three dimensions: multi-omics-driven mechanism integration, precision medicine-oriented dosage form innovation (microenvironment-responsive nanocarriers, smart hydrogels), and clinical expansion into neurodegenerative diseases and organ fibrosis; achieving these requires a synergistic 'discovery-formulation-clinical validation' framework to generate high-level evidence and overcome the current stagnation in sinomenine's clinical translation.