Combination of Acupoints in Treating Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: An Apriori Algorithm‐Based Association Rule Analysis

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is highly prevalent and a major burden on the healthcare system worldwide. It has a severe impact on patients due to poor health-related quality of life (HRQL), dyspnea, and exertional intolerance. Our previous meta-analysis revealed that body acupuncture therapy had adjuvant benefits of improving HRQL in COPD patients undergoing optimal medical treatment. Previous studies indicated that treatment with combinations of acupoints was more effective than single acupoint treatment. The association rule analysis has been widely used to explore relationships in acupoint combination. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the potential core acupoint combination in COPD treatment by mining the association rules from the retrieved randomized control trials (RCTs) of the previous meta-analyses. This study was conducted based on Apriori algorithm-based association rule analysis, which is a popular data mining method available in software R. We extracted acupoints as binary data from the 12 included RCTs for analysis. There were 27 acupoints extracted from 12 RCTs. The top 10 frequently selected acupoints were BL12, BL13, BL20, BL23, BL43, CV17, EXB1, LU5, LU7, and ST36. We investigated 2444 association rules, and the results showed that {ST36, BL12} ≥ {CV17}, {ST36, BL12} ≥ {EXB1}, {CV17, BL12} ≥ {ST36}, and {EXB1, BL12} ≥ {ST36} were the most associated rules in the retrieved RCTs. The acupoint combinations of ST36, BL12, and CV17 and ST36, BL12, and EXB1 could be considered as the core of acupoint combination for further acupuncture treatment of COPD.

An Apriori Algorithm-Based Association Rule Analysis to Identify Acupoint Combinations for Treating Diabetic Gastroparesis

“…High-frequency electrical stimulation of ST36 in diabetic rats can promote the regeneration of lost enteric neurons through glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor and phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase/Akt signaling pathways [38]. e combination of acupoints was reported to exhibit greater therapeutic efficacy than a single acupoint [39,40]. Wang et al reported that the combination of multiple acupoints resulted in improved the score of the Pittsburgh sleep quality index and Athens Insomnia Scale via regulation of the activity of the brain area related to sleep experience [39].…”

“…The combination of acupoints was reported to exhibit greater therapeutic efficacy than a single acupoint [ 39 , 40 ]. Wang et al reported that the combination of multiple acupoints resulted in improved the score of the Pittsburgh sleep quality index and Athens Insomnia Scale via regulation of the activity of the brain area related to sleep experience [ 39 ].…”

Acupoints for Tension-Type Headache: A Literature Study Based on Data Mining Technology

“…Mathematically, support was the fraction of the total number of transactions in which the itemset occurred, measuring the statistical significance of association rules in the whole dataset. Confidence was the conditional probability of the occurrence of consequent, given the antecedent, reflecting the credibility degree of association rules [18]. In brief, the support of A ⟶ B indicated that the prescriptions containing both acupoint A and acupoint B account for the total ones; and the confidence of A ⟶ B displayed that the prescriptions containing both acupoint A and acupoint B account for the ones containing acupoint A.…”

Patterns and Related Influencing Factors of Multiple Chronic Diseases Among the Elderly Based on Data Mining in Shanxi, China

“…The questionnaire comprised two sections: the self-made general information and prevalence of chronic [21]. Based on this study, the support of A→B was the probability of the simultaneous occurrence of chronic disease A and B.…”