Research Progress on Acupuncture Therapy in Infertility: A Bibliometric Analysis from 2000 to 2021

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the research progress and new trend of acupuncture in the treatment of infertility from 2000 to 2021. Methods: The literature review was conducted on acupuncture and moxibustion treatment of infertility from 2000 to 2021 from the Web of Science core collection and PubMed. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to analyze the annual number of articles, countries, institutions, authors, journals, references and keywords. Statistical Analysis Toolkit for Informetrics 3.2 (SATI) and IBM SPSS Modeler 18.0 were employed to draw the maps of core acupoints and acupuncture approaches. Results: A total of 316 articles were included. From 2000 to 2021 the number of publications has been ever increased with certain fluctuations. The United States was the most productive country. Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine was the most active institution. Stener-Victorin E was the highest cited author. Fertility and Sterility was the most prolific journal. Paulus We, 2002 was the highest co-citation literature. SP6 (Sanyinjiao) was the most commonly used acupoint. Manual acupuncture was the most commonly used method. Conclusions:The study of acupuncture in the treatment of infertility is characterized by multinational, multi-institutional participation and close regional cooperation. Acupuncture is a potentially effective therapy for infertility. Due to a lack of research quality and difficulties in performing double-blind, high-quality clinical evidence is urgently required. A complete acupuncture therapy system for infertility should be gradually constructed.