Combination of Acupoints in Treating Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: An Apriori Algorithm‐Based Association Rule Analysis
Hsieh PC, Cheng CF, Wu CW, Tzeng IS, Kuo CY, Hsu PS, Lee CT, Yu MC, Lan CC · Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine · 2020 January
DOI 10.1155/2020/8165296
Objective
To investigate the potential core acupoint combinations for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease treatment by mining association rules from randomized controlled trials included in previous meta-analyses.
Conclusions
The study identified combinations of ST36, BL12, and CV17 and of ST36, BL12, and EXB1 as potential core acupoint combinations for acupuncture treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Critical Appraisal
Published research can offer valuable insights, but a paper’s conclusions may go beyond what its results support. Critical appraisal examines the methods, findings and limitations to clarify what can reasonably be concluded—and what remains uncertain.
This article has not yet been critically appraised by the Research Hub.
Learn more about Critical Appraisal
Insights
Acupuncture for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease most consistently combines Zusanli, Fengmen, Shanzhong, and Dingchuan points, suggesting a core treatment pattern.
Researchers extracted acupuncture-point selections from twelve randomized controlled trials included in an earlier evidence review of acupuncture alongside standard treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. They converted point use into binary data and applied an association-rule mining algorithm to identify points that were frequently selected together across treatment protocols.
The analysis identified several commonly used points and found especially strong co-selection patterns linking Zusanli and Fengmen with either Shanzhong or Dingchuan. These recurring three-point combinations suggest that they represent the central acupuncture configurations used in trials reporting improvements in health-related quality of life for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
