---
title: "Korean hand and Saam acupuncture"
url: "https://acuiq.com/wiki/techniques/korean-hand-and-saam-acupuncture"
updated: 2026-10-13
last_verified: 2026-10-13
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
section: "techniques"
basis: "Classical and modern"
audience: "Anyone"
published: "2026-10-13"
reading_minutes: 11
sources: 22
---

# Korean hand and Saam acupuncture

_How Korean hand acupuncture maps the body onto the hand and Saam acupuncture builds four-point formulas from the five transport points, and what the trials of each report._

Korean hand acupuncture and Saam acupuncture are two methods developed in Korea. Korean hand acupuncture treats the whole body through points on the hand, read as a small map of the body, much as [ear acupuncture](/wiki/techniques/ear-acupuncture) reads the outer ear. Saam acupuncture needles up to four points, chosen from the [five transport points](/wiki/nomenclature/five-transport-points) by a rule of tonifying one channel and sedating another. This page sets out where each came from, how it chooses points, and what its trials report.

## Korean hand acupuncture

A [2024 review of acupuncture in the United States](https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S469491) by Smith and colleagues credits the hand system to Yu Tae-u, a Korean acupuncturist, in the 1970s, and groups it with the ear and the abdomen as a microsystem: a part of the body held to carry a map of the whole. A [2013 trial](https://doi.org/10.4097/kjae.2013.65.6.539) by Koo and colleagues, which spells the name Yoo, calls the method Koryo hand therapy and states that it had been used to treat two million Koreans while remaining rarely used in Western medicine. Korean papers also use the name sooji chim, glossed in the title of a [2002 study](https://doi.org/10.1081/iph-120003759) by Jeong and colleagues as Koryo hand acupuncture therapy.

Ro and Gong, of the orthopaedic surgery department at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, describe in a [2020 commentary](https://doi.org/10.1142/S2424835520970012) how hand acupuncture therapy treats the hand as a homunculus, a scale model of the body, and how its practitioners hold that stimulating the hand improves the health of the body; they add that the concept needs scientific evidence. Trials name the hand points with their own labels: K-K9, which a [2013 review](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082474) by Cheong and colleagues locates on the middle phalanx of the fourth finger, and K-D2, which Koo and colleagues locate on the side of the last phalanx of the index finger. These labels are not codes in AcuiQ’s catalogue. A [2020 comparison](https://doi.org/10.13703/j.0255-2930.20190828-k0007) by Wang and colleagues set eight schools of hand acupuncture side by side, Korean finger needling among them, and found that they locate points and needle them in different ways.

## Needles, pellets, plasters and moxa

Trials of the hand system stimulate its points in four ways. Needles: a [2012 trial](https://doi.org/10.1097/SGA.0b013e318274b1f2) by Park and Cha left them in 16 places on the hand for 25 minutes. Press pellets need no needle: in the trials by Schlager and Boehler, a disc or a seed was taped onto K-K9 30 minutes before anaesthesia and left for at least 24 hours. Anaesthetists in Korea have taped capsicum plaster over the point instead: Koo and colleagues describe the plaster as a round patch 1.1 cm across, containing powdered capsicum, that is used in Korea for pain. One group in India used capsaicin ointment. Hand moxibustion warms the points: a [2009 study](https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945908323650) by Shin and colleagues gave women with premenstrual syndrome 10 sessions of either hand needling or hand moxibustion, in a design without random allocation, and reported lower symptom scores in both groups than in a control group.

## Trials of Korean hand stimulation for postoperative nausea and vomiting

The six randomised trials below tested hand points against nausea and vomiting after surgery, the field in which stimulation of [`PC06`](/points/pc06) (Neiguan) at the wrist, which trials call P6, is also studied. Each blinded at least the people assessing the outcome.

| Trial | Patients | Point and method | Comparison | What it reported |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Schlager 2000](https://doi.org/10.1093/bja/85.2.267) | Children, eye-muscle surgery; 25 per group, according to a [2009 review](https://doi.org/10.1093/ecam/nem181) | K-K9, pressure disc | Tape without a disc | Vomiting in 20%, against 68% |
| [Boehler 2002](https://doi.org/10.1097/00000539-200204000-00018) | 80 women, gynaecological laparoscopy | K-K9, acupressure seeds | Placebo | Nausea 40% and vomiting 22.5%, against 70% and 50% |
| [Kim 2002](https://doi.org/10.1097/00000539-200210000-00059) | 160 women, abdominal hysterectomy | K-D2, or P6, capsicum plaster | Inactive tape on K-D2 | Vomiting by 24 hours in 22% (K-D2) and 26% (P6), against 56.7% |
| [Agarwal 2005](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2044.2005.04402.x) | 186 adults, laparoscopic gallbladder removal | K-D2, capsaicin ointment | Placebo ointment | Nausea and vomiting 21 percentage points lower in the first 6 hours |
| [Koo 2013](https://doi.org/10.4097/kjae.2013.65.6.539) | 184 adults, thyroid surgery | K-D2, or P6, capsicum plaster | Inactive tape; capsicum plaster on the shoulders | Less nausea and vomiting with K-D2 or P6 than with either control |
| [Jung 2013](https://doi.org/10.4040/jkan.2013.43.2.215) | 68 women, gynaecological laparoscopy, all given the antiemetic ramosetron | K-D2 on the second and fourth fingers, capsicum plaster | Ramosetron alone | Less nausea at 2 hours |

The Cheong review pooled 30 randomised trials of acupoint stimulation for postoperative nausea and vomiting, and counted the Boehler trial among six trials of PC06 acupressure against a sham, stating that K-K9 corresponds to PC06. Those six together reported nausea in 31% of patients given acupressure and 43% given the sham in the first 24 hours. The review rated the Boehler trial moderate in quality, and reported that most of the trials it included did not describe how they were blinded.

## Other trials of the hand system

A [2004 trial](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2044.2004.03739.x) by Park and colleagues randomised 150 women having an abdominal hysterectomy to capsicum plaster at the hand point K-A20 or one of two controls, a sham and a placebo, and reported moderate or severe sore throat at 24 hours in none of the first group, against 16% and 19%. A [2026 systematic review](https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.70048) of postoperative sore throat by Moulder and colleagues summarises that trial as reducing how often sore throat occurred at 24 hours but not how severe it was. The Park and Cha trial randomised 42 women with irritable bowel syndrome to hand needling or needling at hand areas unrelated to the bowel, and reported less loose stool, bloating, abdominal discomfort and pain in the first group, with no difference in stress, mental health or heart rate variability. A [2015 review of records](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2015.05.027) by Ochi, without a control group, describes 29 children given needle-free hand therapy after tonsillectomy, all of whom accepted it; their mean pain score fell from 5.0 to 3.1 out of 10.

AcuiQ’s pages for [sore throat after surgery](/symptoms/sore-throat-after-surgery) and [irritable bowel syndrome](/symptoms/irritable-bowel-syndrome) list the protocols individual studies prescribed, each with its citation.

## Saam acupuncture

A [2015 review](https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/703439) by Park and Kim of Wonkwang University dates the first Saam manuscript to between 1644 and 1742, in the middle of the Joseon dynasty, and attributes it to a Korean Buddhist monk whose name is unknown. The earliest date comes from the manuscript’s quotation of _Chimgugyeongheombang_, a Korean acupuncture text published in 1644. The oldest copy that survives, _Essential Rhymes on Acupuncture and Moxibustion by Master Saam_, adds the clinical experience of a later practitioner, Gy-san. Park and Kim trace the limit of four needles to a line in the _Dongeuibogam_, the Treasured Mirror of Eastern Medicine, that warns against needling the whole body and advises one needle and at most four.

## How Saam acupuncture chooses its four points

Saam acupuncture draws its points from the five transport points of each channel, each of which belongs to one of the [five phases](/wiki/theory/the-five-phases), and Park and Kim set out the rule for combining them. It starts from the 69th chapter of the _Nanjing_, the Classic of Difficult Issues, which says to fill the mother of a depleted channel and drain the child of a replete one. Saam added the phase that controls the depleted one. For a channel diagnosed as deficient, the practitioner tonifies the mother phase’s point on that channel and on the mother phase’s own channel, and sedates the controlling phase’s point on both. For a deficient lung channel, a metal channel whose mother is earth and whose controller is fire, that gives four points: tonify the earth points [`LU09`](/points/lu09) (Taiyuan) and [`SP03`](/points/sp03) (Taibai), and sedate the fire points [`LU10`](/points/lu10) (Yuji) and [`HT08`](/points/ht08) (Shaofu). For an excess, the order turns over: the controller’s points are tonified and the child’s points sedated, so an excess of the lung channel tonifies LU10 and HT08 and sedates the water points, [`LU05`](/points/lu05) (Chize) on the lung channel and [`KD10`](/points/kd10) (Yingu) on the kidney channel.

The manuscript holds 240 treatments, according to Park and Kim: 100 regular forms built on the 69th chapter, 140 irregular forms built on the 73rd and 75th, and further special points. Of the published Saam case studies they found, 85% used a plain tonifying or sedating formula. A [2021 text-mining study](https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10102059) by Jang and colleagues compared the point prescriptions for 14 diseases in the Saam text, the _Dongeuibogam_ and _Chimgugyeongheombang_, and found the Saam prescriptions the most different of the three.

## Trials of Saam acupuncture

Park and Kim searched four Korean databases, PubMed and Google Scholar and found 28 case studies and 17 clinical studies, mostly of musculoskeletal pain and of the autonomic nervous system. Most of the case reports combined Saam acupuncture with other treatments, which they say makes its effect hard to separate. Three compared Saam plus general body acupuncture with general body acupuncture alone, a design they call unsuitable because the two groups receive different amounts of stimulation, and they warn that a sham needled at non-points near the five transport points could act like the real points.

A [2022 trial](https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2581041) by Lee and colleagues randomised 24 people with functional dyspepsia to Saam acupuncture three times a week for four weeks plus usual care, or usual care alone. It found no difference in overall dyspepsia symptom scores at four weeks, differences at the follow-ups at eight and 12 weeks, and no adverse events related to the needling. The authors name the lack of a sham group as a major limitation. A [2015 pilot study](https://doi.org/10.1089/acu.2014.1071) by Jeong and colleagues gave Saam acupuncture to nine patients with arm lymphoedema after breast cancer surgery for six weeks, with no control group, and reported smaller arm measurements. A [2011 study](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2010.11.001) by Hwang and colleagues gave six night-shift nurses Saam and sham acupuncture in turn and reported heart rate variability measures consistent with lower sympathetic activity after Saam acupuncture. AcuiQ lists the protocols studies prescribed for [functional dyspepsia](/symptoms/functional-dyspepsia) and [breast cancer-related lymphoedema](/symptoms/breast-cancer-related-lymphedema).

## What the sources cannot settle

The six nausea trials each stimulated one hand point, and most compared it with inactive tape or ointment; only Koo and colleagues also put the same capsicum plaster somewhere other than an acupuncture point, which separates the point from the plaster. The Cheong review pooled the Boehler trial as a PC06 trial, so it cannot say whether the hand map adds anything to the wrist point. Ro and Gong state that the map itself still needs evidence, and Wang and colleagues found that hand schools disagree on where the points are. For Saam acupuncture, Park and Kim write that the classical diagnostic criteria for choosing a channel are too ambiguous for selecting the correct one; the Saam trials are small, and the randomised trial by Lee and colleagues had no sham. [Sham acupuncture](/wiki/research/sham-acupuncture) explains why the choice of control matters.

### Sources

1. Smith CL, Reddy B, Wolf CM, Schnyer RN, St John K, Conboy L, The state of 21st century acupuncture in the United States, Journal of Pain Research 2024 — https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S469491
2. Koo MS, Kim KS, Lee HJ, Jeong JS, Lee JW, Antiemetic efficacy of capsicum plaster on acupuncture points in patients undergoing thyroid operation, Korean Journal of Anesthesiology 2013 — https://doi.org/10.4097/kjae.2013.65.6.539
3. Jeong HJ, Kim BS, Oh JG, Kim KS, Kim HM, Regulatory effect of cytokine production in asthma patients by SOOJI CHIM (Koryo Hand Acupuncture Therapy), Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology 2002 — https://doi.org/10.1081/iph-120003759
4. Ro DH, Gong HS, The hand as a homunculus: a perspective from hand acupuncture therapy, Journal of Hand Surgery Asian-Pacific Volume 2020 — https://doi.org/10.1142/S2424835520970012
5. Cheong KB, Zhang JP, Huang Y, Zhang ZJ, The effectiveness of acupuncture in prevention and treatment of postoperative nausea and vomiting: a systematic review and meta-analysis, PLoS One 2013 — https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082474
6. Wang RQ, Zhang ZD, Liu JX, Jia CS, Comparison of different schools of hand acupuncture therapies, Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2020 (in Chinese) — https://doi.org/10.13703/j.0255-2930.20190828-k0007
7. Park HJ, Cha C, The effect of Korean hand acupuncture on young, single Korean students with irritable bowel syndrome, Gastroenterology Nursing 2012 — https://doi.org/10.1097/SGA.0b013e318274b1f2
8. Shin KR, Ha JY, Park HJ, Heitkemper M, The effect of hand acupuncture therapy and hand moxibustion therapy on premenstrual syndrome among Korean women, Western Journal of Nursing Research 2009 — https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945908323650
9. Schlager A, Boehler M, Pühringer F, Korean hand acupressure reduces postoperative vomiting in children after strabismus surgery, British Journal of Anaesthesia 2000 — https://doi.org/10.1093/bja/85.2.267
10. Gold JI, Nicolaou CD, Belmont KA, et al., Pediatric acupuncture: a review of clinical research, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2009 — https://doi.org/10.1093/ecam/nem181
11. Boehler M, Mitterschiffthaler G, Schlager A, Korean hand acupressure reduces postoperative nausea and vomiting after gynecological laparoscopic surgery, Anesthesia and Analgesia 2002 — https://doi.org/10.1097/00000539-200204000-00018
12. Kim KS, Koo MS, Jeon JW, Park HS, Seung IS, Capsicum plaster at the Korean hand acupuncture point reduces postoperative nausea and vomiting after abdominal hysterectomy, Anesthesia and Analgesia 2002 — https://doi.org/10.1097/00000539-200210000-00059
13. Agarwal A, Dhiraaj S, Tandon M, Singh PK, Singh U, Pawar S, Evaluation of capsaicin ointment at the Korean hand acupressure point K-D2 for prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting, Anaesthesia 2005 — https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2044.2005.04402.x
14. Jung HJ, Park SY, Combination effects of capsicum plaster at the Korean hand acupuncture points K-D2 with prophylactic antiemetic on postoperative nausea and vomiting after gynecologic laparoscopy, Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing 2013 (in Korean) — https://doi.org/10.4040/jkan.2013.43.2.215
15. Park HS, Kim KS, Min HK, Kim DW, Prevention of postoperative sore throat using capsicum plaster applied at the Korean hand acupuncture point, Anaesthesia 2004 — https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2044.2004.03739.x
16. Moulder ZJ, Mann J, Bramley P, Heinz J, Wiles MD, Postoperative sore throat: a systematic review, Anaesthesia 2026 — https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.70048
17. Ochi JW, Korean hand therapy for tonsillectomy pain in children, International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 2015 — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2015.05.027
18. Park M, Kim S, A modern clinical approach of the traditional Korean Saam acupuncture, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2015 — https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/703439
19. Jang DY, Oh KC, Jung ES, Cho SJ, Lee JY, Lee YJ, et al., Diversity of acupuncture point selections according to the acupuncture styles and their relations to theoretical elements in traditional Asian medicine: a data-mining-based literature study, Journal of Clinical Medicine 2021 — https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10102059
20. Lee B, Kwon OJ, Kim JH, Kang JW, Kim TH, Lee S, et al., Saam acupuncture for treating functional dyspepsia: a feasibility randomized controlled trial, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2022 — https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2581041
21. Jeong YJ, Kwon HJ, Park YS, Kwon OC, Shin IH, Park SH, Treatment of lymphedema with Saam acupuncture in patients with breast cancer: a pilot study, Medical Acupuncture 2015 — https://doi.org/10.1089/acu.2014.1071
22. Hwang DS, Kim HK, Seo JC, Shin IH, Kim DH, Kim YS, Sympathomodulatory effects of Saam acupuncture on heart rate variability in night-shift-working nurses, Complementary Therapies in Medicine 2011 — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2010.11.001