Bibliometric and Visual Analysis in the Field of Dry Needling for Myofascial Pain Syndrome from 2000 to 2022

Abstract

Background Evidence has shown that dry needling (DN) is effective for myofascial pain syndrome (MPS). However, bibliometrics has rarely been used to analyze the literature related to DN for MPS. The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic overview of global frontiers and research hotspots of DN in the treatment of MPS from 2000 to 2022. Methods A search was conducted on Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC) for literature on DN for MPS from 2000 to 2022. Based on the basic information provided by WoS CC, CiteSpace software was used to conduct bibliometric analysis of the countries, institutions, categories, journals, authors, references and keywords involved in this topic. Results A total of 458 papers were obtained, with the number of publications increasing over time. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (31) was the most productive journal based on the number of publications, while Arch Phys Med Rehab (329) was the most co-cited journal. The most productive countries and institutions were USA (112) and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (39), respectively. Fernandez-de-las-penas, Cesar has the highest number of publications (24) and Simons DG, who was an author with the highest number of citations (250). The article published by Gattie et al (co-citations: 65), and Mejuto-Vazquez et al (centrality: 0.36) were the most representative and symbolic. Based on the co-cited literature and keywords, myofascial trigger point, research methods, and acupuncture were the hot research topics and trends in the field. Conclusion The current status and trends in clinical research of DN for MPS are revealed according to the results of this bibliometric study, which may facilitate researchers to identify hot topics and new directions for future research.

Bibliometric and Altimetric Analysis of Research Relating to Percutaneous Electrolysis

“…Although there are no previous bibliometric analyses on percutaneous electrolysis, the findings of this study are similar to previous bibliometric reviews on dry needling. In a bibliometric analysis of dry needling, it was observed that Spain was one of the two countries with the most contribution, similar to percutaneous electrolysis (23). Furthermore, similar to the present study, the author with the most publications was "Fernandez-de-las-Penas".…”

Global trends of acupuncture clinical research on analgesia from 2010 to 2023: a bibliometric and visualization analysis

“…Keywords and references can reflect the content of the research, which is helpful in identifying hotspots and frontiers from their frequency, centrality, and clustering distribution ( 31 ). From cluster-related topics, we can identify the current frontiers from the perspective of research areas; knee osteoarthritis ( 32 ), postoperative pain ( 33 ), post-dural puncture headache ( 34 , 35 ), dry needling ( 36 ), case report ( 35 , 37 ), and post-herpetic neuralgia ( 38 ) are the areas of the main research focus, which shows that researchers are highly interested in acupuncture analgesia for different disease types. In addition, a burst keyword can indicate cutting-edge research topics and reveal studies that have potential or are of interest.…”

Knowledge mapping of acupoint sensitization and acupoint specificity: a bibliometric analysis

“…Bibliometrics is a method of literature analysis that allows for quantitative and qualitative analysis of detailed information about authors, keywords, journals, countries, institutions, references, etc., in a relevant field of study, and can be used to analyze the publications’ output in a specific field of study from multiple perspectives ( Wang et al, 2019 ; Ke et al, 2020 ). Commonly used bibliometric tools such as CiteSpace ( Synnestvedt et al, 2005 ), VOSviewer ( Yeung et al, 2020 ), the R package “Bibliometrix” ( Li et al, 2020 ), and HistCite ( Lu et al, 2020 ) can be used to visualize and analyze the results, and in recent years, have been widely used in the field of acupuncture and moxibustion research, such as lumbar pain ( Jiao et al, 2022 ), myofascial syndromes ( Luo et al, 2023 ), shoulder pain ( Xu et al, 2023 ), vomiting ( Tan et al, 2023 ), neck pain ( Gong et al, 2023 ), and facial paralysis ( Yu et al, 2023 ). These studies have focused on the assessment of the clinical efficacy of acupuncture, however, bibliometric studies on the essence of acupoint sensitization and acupoint specificity have not yet been reported.…”