ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the disease spectrum and predominant diseases treated by abdominal acupuncture by data mining and analysis of journal articles on abdominal acupuncture, and to provide a reference for clinical diagnosis and treatment. METHODS: Based on the database of abdominal acupuncture established by the research group, the data mining technique was used for the analysis and extraction of the articles on abdominal acupuncture included in this study. RESULTS: A total of 788 original journal articles were included. Six departments and 96 disease categories, among which there were 45 internal diseases (46.84%) and 18 surgical diseases (18.75%) were involved. As for the diseases involved, cervical spondylosis had the highest frequency of 84, followed by low back and leg pain with a frequency of 77 and stroke sequela with a frequency of 67. Of all 788 studies, 519 (65.86%) used abdominal acupuncture combined with other therapies with a total frequency of 552, among which acupuncture had the highest frequency of 135 (24.46%), followed by oral administration of traditional Chinese medicine with a frequency of 81 (14.67%) and moxibustion with a frequency of 80 (14.49%). Abdominal acupuncture had a marked clinical effect in the treatment of various diseases, with the highest effective rate of 95.10% in surgical diseases. CONCLUSION: Abdominal acupuncture has a wide disease spectrum and is most frequently used for the treatment of cervical spondylosis, with a marked clinical effect. Abdominal acupuncture has unique therapeutic characteristics and advantages, but it can achieve a better clinical effect when combined with other therapies.