A Bibliometric Analysis of Acupotomy Clinical Research Trends

Objectives: Though the number of researches on acupotomy is showing an increasing trend, evidence on the recent research trends is lacking.This study aimed to explore the current status of acupotomy studies using a bibliometric approach.Methods: Publications including original clinical research (observational studies and clinical trials) and reviews covering both modern evidence and classical Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) literature from inception to 2025 were retrieved from PubMed.The records were screened independently by three authors (YK, JP, and YY) and the discrepancies were resolved by consensus.Extracted items from relevant studies were publication year, country, year, journal, research area, organizations and authors.Co-occurence of all keywords (medical subject heading keywords and author keywords) was visualized using the VOSviewer program.Results: Of 20,899 retrieved records, 126 publications were subject to analysis.The country producing the most articles was China, South Korea, and Taiwan.A network analysis based on the co-occurrence of all keywords (from 118 studies) suggested following five clusters: low back pain, knee osteoarthritis, shouder pain, (cervical) radiculopathy and vertigo, and trigger finger disorders. Conclusion:This study provides a macroscopic overview of clinical and theoretical literature on acupotomy.These findings suggest an expansive strategy on standardization of acupotomy-related terms for researchers in this field.