Through bibliometric analysis, trends in international acupuncture clinical development, key research areas, and current scientific issues were identified based on literature published from 2013 to 2022. Literature on acupuncture in clinical settings was retrieved and analyzed in this study utilizing the Web of Science database. A visualization analysis of the scientific landscape was performed using CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and GraphPad Prism. General statistics regarding the literature were examined, encompassing annual publication trends, citation frequencies, journal distributions, distributions across subject fields. Co-occurrence and cluster analyses of authors, countries, institutions, high-quality literature, and keywords were performed to explore the developmental trends, hotspots, and frontiers in acupuncture research comprehensively and intuitively. A total of 4554 studies were included, with an increasing trend in the number of publications related to the annual acupuncture Scientific Citation Index (SCI). The impact factors of the top 10 journals were mostly 1 to 3 points. The 10 most cited articles primarily concentrated on the use of acupuncture for pain-related disorders. Acupuncture and electroacupuncture are the dominant keywords, with terms such as "ischemic stroke" and "Alzheimer's disease" emerging from 2019 to 2022. From 2013 to 2022, the output of clinical SCI literature on acupuncture increased, acupuncture research gradually gained international recognition, and China gradually moved toward a dominant position. The most significant clinical research area of acupuncture is its application for analgesia, particularly through acupuncture and electroacupuncture. Future research directions may include the treatment of knee osteoarthritis, cognitive disorders, and assisted reproduction utilizing acupuncture.