[Regularities of clinical application of hand acupuncture therapy to treatment of various diseases based on data mining].

Objective: To explore the regularities of clinical application of hand acupuncture therapy to the treatment of diseases of different departments by using data mining technique, so as to provide a reference for clinical practice.

Methods: We searched papers, academic dissertations and case reports (published in journals from Jan 1, 1953 to December 31, 2017) from databases of China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI), VIP, and Wanfang, and also searched papers from medical books about hand acupuncture treatment of different diseases/illness by using keywords of "hand acupuncture" and "hand acupoints"， followed by constructing a database after sorting, screening, recording, extracting, and statistical analysis by using a computer. Then, the data mining was conducted for summarizing the characteristics and rules of the hand acupuncture therapy in clinical application.

Results: The hand acupuncture therapy in Chinese medical journals was found to be applied to various clinical departments, with the frequency from high to low successively being 16 types of diseases (37.21%) in the surgery, 15 diseases (34.88%) in the internal medicine, 2 diseases (4.65%) in the pediatrics, 8 diseases (18.60%) in the ophthalmology-otorhinolaryngology, 1 disease (2.33%) in the genecology and 1 disease (2.33%) in the dermatology. In the treatment of diseases, the cure plus markedly effective rate of hand acupuncture was found to be highest for diseases of the pediatrics (90.65%), and was 88.45% surgery, 78.06% internal medicine, 89.96% ophthalmology-otorhinolaryngology, 60.61% gynecology, and 67.73% dermatology, respectively. When hand acupuncture used, the acupoints of the hand region on both sides, healthy side and affected side were often selected, and movement exercise was often used in combination, particularly for problems of the surgery. In the collected medical records and 6 acupuncture books, the hand acupuncture was employed for treatment of 34 and 123 kinds of diseases or problems, respectively, with the tissue injury, lumbocrural pain being most frequently seen in the records, and abdominal pain, lumbocrural, chest obstruction, etc. most frequently seen in the acupuncture books.

Conclusion: Hand acupuncture therapy is widely used in the treatment of many clinical problems of different departments, such as tissue injury, leg pain, etc. of the surgery; abdominal pain, asthma, etc. of the internal medicine; infantile enuresis, diarrhea, etc. of the pediatrics. Acupoints of the hand on the unilateral side are frequently employed and may have a better therapeutic effect.