Liu Chen, Liu Shuqing, Wang Yu, Xia Xinyi, Zhang Yu, Jiang Huili, Bao Tuya, Ma Xuehong
Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, PR China; Dongfang Hospital of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100078, PR China.
Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, PR China.
Complement Ther Med. 2025 Mar;88:103110. doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2024.103110. Epub 2024 Nov 13.
Acupuncture, a therapy created by the ancient Chinese, has been gaining increasing popularity and acceptance worldwid. The surge in the number of publications on acupuncture therapy has posed significant challenges for researchers in effectively managing the vast amount of information. This study aimed to analyze the themes and topics of the scientific publications related to acupuncture therapy in the past two decades by machine learning.
The MeSH term "Acupuncture Therapy" was used for searching publications from 1st January, 2004-31 st December, 2023 on the PubMed database, while the R platform was adopted to obtain associated data. A topic network was constructed by latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and the Louvain algorithm.
A total of 17,584 publications were finally recruited in this article. The publications were derived from 57 countries, with China, The United States and England being the top three countries. "Acupuncture Points", "Treatment outcome", "Electroacupuncture" were the most concerned MeSH terms. Four clusters and 50 branched topics were recognized by LDA and network analyses. "Comparative Efficacy", "Biochemical Analysis", "Symptomatic Treatment", "Professional Practice" and "Clinical Trials" are hotspots identified by LDA. "Neurotransmitter", "Meta-Analysis" and "Literature Review" have presented as new research hotspots.
Acupuncture therapy has obtained increasing attention over the past two decades. Most of the studies focus on the mechanisms especially the analgesic and anti-inflammatory mechanisms, more researches such as "Neurotransmitter" will continue to advance. Besides, "meta-analysis" and "literature reviews" are increasingly common, providing more comprehensive and credible evidence for acupuncture therapy.
针灸是中国古人创造的一种疗法，在全球范围内越来越受欢迎并被广泛接受。针灸疗法相关出版物数量的激增给研究人员有效管理大量信息带来了重大挑战。本研究旨在通过机器学习分析过去二十年中与针灸疗法相关的科学出版物的主题和话题。
使用医学主题词（MeSH）“针灸疗法”在PubMed数据库中检索2004年1月1日至2023年12月31日的出版物，同时采用R平台获取相关数据。通过潜在狄利克雷分配（LDA）和鲁汶算法构建主题网络。
本文最终纳入了17584篇出版物。这些出版物来自57个国家，中国、美国和英国位列前三。“穴位”“治疗结果”“电针”是最受关注的MeSH术语。通过LDA和网络分析识别出四个聚类和50个分支主题。LDA确定的热点包括“比较疗效”“生化分析”“对症治疗”“专业实践”和“临床试验”。“神经递质”“荟萃分析”和“文献综述”已成为新的研究热点。
在过去二十年中，针灸疗法越来越受到关注。大多数研究集中在机制上，尤其是镇痛和抗炎机制，更多如“神经递质”方面的研究将持续推进。此外，“荟萃分析”和“文献综述”越来越普遍，为针灸疗法提供了更全面、可靠的证据。
