$re = '/\b(\w+)\b(?=(?:\s*[^\w\s]\s*\w+)+\s*[^\w\s]\s*\b\1\b)/m';
$str = 'item1 , test, item3 ;
item4,item5;
test , item6;
alex , alex';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php