Assessment of acupuncture as a method of analgesia during operation

The authors evaluated the method of acupuncture used for analgesia in various types of minor and major surgical operations in patients not previously tested for determination of susceptibility for this method. The report is a preliminary communication. For major operations the patients received premedication and during the operation they received additional local or general analgesics. Out of 13 patients in various age groups 5 evaluated this analgesia as very good and in 3 cases the degree of analgesia obtained was not sufficient to perform the operation. The authors regard that acupuncture has found its main application principally in the treatment of chronic pain, while as a method of analgesia for surgical operations it has many disadvantages and requires further experiences. The authors observed also certain features of acupuncture analgesia not observed in conventional methods of nerve conduction blockade, which may contribute to the explanation of the mechanism of acupuncture.