Bibliometric analysis on key elements of clinical application of acupoint catgut embedding therapy in recent ten years

Abstract

To analyze the characteristics of acupoint catgut embedding methods, tools, catgut types, and the treatment cycles in the clinical research in recent ten years both at home and abroad, so as to summarize its regularities and to provide technical references for further studies. Articles about clinical researches on catgut embedding therapy published in recent ten years (from January 1, 2010 to December 31,2020) were retrieved from the databases of CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, and PubMed by using key words of "acupoint embedding" "acupoint catgut embedding" and "catgut implantation at acupoint". According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a new database was established for analyzing the data mentioned above. 1) A total of 1 196 articles were collected, including 15 English articles and 1 181 Chinese articles, presenting a fluctuating increasing trend in recent ten years. 2) The commonly used acupoint embedding methods included disposable catgut embedment needle method (399 times, 38.89%) and disposable syringe needle catgut embedding method (347 times, 33.82%), for which two or multiple methods were mentioned in the same one article. 3) The most frequently used top two tools for catgut embedding were the dispo-sable catgut embedment needle (463 times, 43.03%) and disposable syringe needle (406 times,37.73%), with a significant increase in the application of disposable syringe needle. The most commonly used size of tools included No. 7 (283 times, 39.86%), No. 9 (196 times, 27.61%) and No. 8 (109 times, 15.35%). 4) The most frequently implanted surgical suture was still the common catgut (671 times, 58.15%) despite of a reduction in clinical application year by year, and the types of the implanted suture materials were gradually enriched since 2018, such as the absorbable surgical suture, polyethylprolactide(PGLA), collagen protein thread, polydioxanone(PPDO), etc. The commonly used implanted catgut size was 3-0 (227 times, 30.15%), 2-0 (176 times, 23.37%), 4-0 (131 times, 17.40%), 0 (103 times, 13.68%), with the commonly used catgut length being 1 cm (332 times, 35.55%), 1.5 cm (103 times, 11.03%), 1-2 cm (92 times, 9.85%) and 2 cm (92 times, 9.85%). 5) The intervals of the catgut implantation were 7 days (313 times, 28.95%), 14 days (262 times, 24.24%), 10 days (174 times, 16.10%), and 15 days (162 times, 14.99%). In recent ten years, clinical research on acupoint catgut embedding is growing rapidly, and the embedding methods, tools, implanted sutures, and embedding intervals are various, which may provide certain technical references for the future researches and suggest an urgent need of formulation of the standardized and unified standards in this field.