Pattern-related profiles of acupuncture points for pain management
Yoon DE, Seo Y, Moon H, Kong SH, Nam C, Hwang J, Kim K, Kwon MH, Jin HW, Ryu Y, Lee IS, Chae Y · Medicine · 2026 September 18
DOI 10.1097/MD.0000000000050804
Objective
To investigate the associations between acupoint use and deficiency-excess, cold-heat, and dryness-dampness pattern scores among outpatients with pain disorders.
Conclusions
Commonly used acupoints showed heterogeneous profiles across clinician-assigned deficiency-excess, cold-heat, and dryness-dampness scores, with hierarchical clustering providing an exploratory five-group representation of pattern-related tendencies in real-world acupoint selection.
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Insights
Commonly used acupuncture points for pain showed distinct associations with traditional pattern characteristics, suggesting clinicians tailor point selection beyond disease diagnosis alone.
Researchers reviewed outpatient medical records for people treated for various pain disorders. Clinicians had assigned graded assessments of deficiency versus excess, cold versus heat, and dryness versus dampness patterns. The investigators calculated average pattern profiles for the most frequently prescribed acupuncture points and used hierarchical clustering to group points with similar profiles, comparing several possible groupings and checking the stability of the selected grouping.
The most commonly prescribed points were frequently used for pain management, but the examined points differed substantially in their pattern profiles. The clustering analysis offered an exploratory representation of several groups of points with related traditional pattern tendencies, although no single grouping was clearly superior. Overall, the findings indicate that real-world acupuncture point selection may reflect clinicians’ assessments of symptom patterns as well as the patient’s pain condition.
