ABSTRACT
This paper reviews the researches on acupuncture preconditioning before surgery in recent years and explores its application value from three aspects, i.e. relieving preoperative anxiety, preventing from postoperative cognitive dysfunction, and preventing from postoperative gastrointestinal dysfunction. As a relatively safe non-drug treatment, acupuncture has the underlying advantages in participating into multidisciplinary coordination in the enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS). By building up higher-quality medical evidences and revealing the effect mechanism of acupuncture from multi-dimenisonal aspects, it is expected that acupuncture technology can be coordinated with ERAS to optimize the clinical path in the perioperative period, and boost the development of the perioperative medicine ultimately.