[Features of clinical application of eye acupuncture therapy revealed by data mining].

Objective: To investigate the features, dominant indications and application regularities of eye acupuncture therapy in clinical practice.

Methods: We first collected original articles, academic dissertations, conference articles, and case reports from databases of CNKI, Wanfang, and Chinese biomedical literature (CBM) from Jan. 1 of 1980 to Dec. 31 of 2017, and medical records from medical books of Zhonghua Yan Zhen (), Yanzhen Shijian Lu (), and Peng Jing-shan's Yanzhen Liaofa Yanjiu () by using keyword of "eye acupuncture". Then, we established an "Eye-acupuncture Database" after sorting, screening, typing-in, checking, and extraction of the collected data by SQL server 2005 and 2005 Analysis Services (SASS), followed by analysis of the dominant indications, needling methods, needle manipulations, principles for acupoint selection, and clinical effect.

Results: Among the 850 articles retrieved, 178 were eligible to be subjected to analysis, including 42 disorders/diseases in 7 categories. The eye acupuncture therapy has the highest application frequency for 19 types of disorders/diseases of the internal medicine, such as sequela of apoplexy, hiccup, insomnia, vertigo, hypertension, etc., followed by head and body pain (7 types: headache, lumbago, sciatica, shoulder pain, etc.), disorders of the ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology (deafness, squinting eyes, dry eye syndrome, amblyopia, etc.), traumatic injury, gynecopathy, acute pain (biliary colic, renal colic). The effect rate was 95.87% for disorders of the gynecopathy, 95.54% for head and body pain, 94.53% for traumatic skin injury, 92.16% for emergency, 91.98% for disorders of the five sense organs, 91.43% for problems of the internal medicine, etc. Regarding the principle of acupoint selection, acupoints were chosen mainly according to the meridian running (146 articles), local region of the eye (14 articles) and diseased location (153 articles). A total of 157 articles have a marked description about the needling methods, including horizontal needling (81 articles), intra-orbital straight needling (22 articles), extra-orbital oblique needling (13 articles), etc. The duration of needle retaining was mostly from 15 to 30 minutes, and the handle-scraping was frequently adopted (34 articles), and the overall treatment frequency ranged from 11 to 20 times. In regard to the medical records, a total of 53 types of disorders were involved, including 37 types of the internal medicine such as stroke sequelae (34 articles), facial paralysis (11 articles), etc. The acupoints were selected according to the local region of eye (129 articles), the needle insertion involved horizontal needling (102 articles), and cured rate reported was higher than 90%.

Conclusion: Eye acupuncture therapy is widely used for a variety of disorders and has a positive effect, particularly for stroke sequelae and various acute and chronic pain problems.