Overseas Clinical Research Trends of Acupuncture Treatment on Degenerative Knee Osteoarthritis

Objectives : To find out the trend of overseas clinical research on acupuncture, one of the effective treatments for degenerative knee arthritis.Methods : A total of 247 papers were selected as the target papers by conducting a search on clinical studies related to acupuncture treatment for degenerative knee arthritis published from January 1, 2018 to April 1, 2023.The selected papers are classified by year, journal, country, study type, subject, treatment period, number of participants, and evaluation tool to identify the research trend.Results : Papers tended to be published more in the 2020s, and the journal with the most papers was the Clinical Journal of China Medicine.There were 233 papers studied in China, and most of them were RCT papers.The most common research topic was combination therapy, and among the single treatments, warm acupuncture.The three frequent acupuncture points were Dokbi(ST35), Yangneungcheon(GB34), and Naeseulan(EX-LE4), and the treatment period used as multiple frequency was 4 weeks, the number of participants was 71-80 people, and evaluation tools were VAS and WOMAC.Conclusions : With the global aging population, studies on acupuncture treatment for degenerative knee arthritis, one of the representative senile diseases, tended to increase.Research tended to study combination therapy rather than single therapy, and warm acupuncture was receiving high attention as a single treatment.Through this study, we hope that it will be helpful in expanding research on various acupuncture treatments for domestic patients in the future and treating degenerative knee arthritis in the clinical field.