Cupping Therapy (Al-Hijamah) Points: A Powerful Standardization Tool for Cupping Procedures?

Abstract

Background: Cupping (Al-Hijamah) therapy is a traditional complementary and alternative medicine practice used in diverse diseases with the variable outcome since ancient times. The precise selection of cupping points is a core component of cupping therapy techniques and one of the important determinant factors concerning the outcome of a disease and safety of the patient. Objective: The aim of this narrative overview is to critically describe various cupping points and their tentative selection criteria that help cupping practitioners in applying cups accurately on the afflicted skin surface. Methods: Electronic searches of certain databases and scientific publishing websites were made using Boolean Operators and keywords, and based on exclusion/inclusion criteria and consensus 40 full pertinent English articles of the last five years (2013-2017) were included by two independent reviewers. Results: The theme of cupping points is complex controversial and often puzzling, and connected to a variety of determining tentative criteria and factors and have their prime roots in Prophetic Islamic medicine and Traditional medicine, Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Modern medicine. Conclusion: The cupping (Al-Hijamah) therapy techniques with precise selection of cupping points on the afflicted skin surface (i.e., sites of pain) tend to produce good therapeutic response without any major adverse events in patients with specific diseases. This study calls for further research in order to uniformly define and classify cupping therapy points concerning individual specific diseases, prevention of diseases and promotion of health at global level.