Research hotspots and trends of acupoint and pain based on PubMed: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Objective: Acupoint-related interventions are the widely utilized modalities in traditional Chinese medicine for the alleviation of pain. This study aims to identify research hotspots and trends by conducting a bibliometric analysis of the relevant literature on acupoint and pain, thereby elucidating future research directions in this field.

Method: A comprehensive search was conducted on PubMed for literature pertaining to acupoint and pain from January 2010 to August 2024. Subsequent bibliometric analyses, encompassing statistical evaluation of bibliographic data, keyword cluster analysis, and co-occurrence analysis, were conducted utilizing the Medpulse database and the Bibliometrix R-package.

Results: A total of 742 articles from 179 journals were included in the analysis, with the majority focusing on complementary and alternative medicine or comprehensive research. The number of publications in this field has shown a consistent annual increase, involving contributions from 19 different countries of corresponding authors. China had the greatest contribution with 407 articles followed by Korea with 25 articles. The leading institutions in terms of publication volume are Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, and Kyung Hee University. The topics covered in these articles include acupuncture, transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS), randomized controlled trials, analgesia, zusanli (st36), systematic review, and anxiety, among others. The main cluster themes are intervention methods for various acupoints and the assessment of their efficacy.

Conclusion: The bibliometric analysis has identified the intervention methods of acupoints and the evaluation of their efficacy in pain management as emerging research focal points. Additionally, anxiety is anticipated to emerge as a future research direction within this domain.

Keywords: acupoints; acupuncture; bibliometrics; pain; transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation.

Figure 1

The annual number of publications and citations on “acupoints” and “pain” in the past 15 years. The blue bars represent the number of publications per year, and nodes indicate the number of citations.

Figure 2

Line chart of publications by journal related to “acupoints” and “pain” in the past 15 years.

Figure 3

The number of publications by the top 10 authors from 2010 to 2024 (left) and the evaluation of author productivity through Lotka’s law (right). The solid line corresponded to the observed data, whereas the dotted line represented the theoretical relationship.

Figure 4

The number of papers published by institutions over time.

Figure 5

Sankey diagram of the publication related to “acupoints” and “pain” in the past 15 years. Sankey diagram showed the flow and relationship of the three fields: author (AU)-affiliated institution (AU_UN)-source (SO) for global publications. Different lines represented different diversion situations, and their length proportionally showed the number of publications contained in this branch.

Figure 6

Bar chart showing the distribution of the top 10 countries of corresponding authors and the proportion of international cooperation.

Figure 7

The top 50 keywords with the highest frequency of publications related to “acupoints” and “pain.” The greater the frequency, the larger the size of the keyword.

Figure 8

Research topic trends of publications related to “acupoints” and “pain.” Each line represented a keyword timeline, and the size of the bubble was proportional to the number of literature that used the keyword. The bubble is located at the midpoint of the timeline of the keyword.

Figure 9

Clustering of publications related to “acupoints” and “pain” by coupling. Eight main cluster groups in this study were screened out, each cluster group showing different research characteristics. Among them, “acupuncture-electroacupuncture-analgesia,” “transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation,” and “acupuncture-acupuncture and moxibustion-analgesia” are the clusters with the highest centrality.

Figure 10

Keyword co-occurrence network of keywords in publications correlated with “acupoints” and “pain.” Nodes represented keywords, the node’s size was proportional to the frequency of keyword occurrence, and connections represented co-occurrence relationships or citation relationships between keywords.

Figure 11

Thematic evolution in the fields of “acupoints” and “pain” at different time stages. Different lines represented different diversion situations, and their length proportionally showed the number of publications contained in this branch.