Chinese medicine is a holistic method of therapy with thousands of years of history. There are more assumptions regarding the mechanism of action, nevertheless, several studies have demonstrated its therapeutic effect. Nowadays, patients and physicians have become open to complementary medicine, but acupuncture used in the perioperative period has not yet widespread in Hungary. The aim of the article is to describe traditional Chinese medicine, primarily the effect of acupuncture and laser acupuncture on patients undergoing surgery. Relieving anxiety before surgery, alleviating pain, nausea and vomiting during and after surgery is a basic anesthesiology task, however, the drug therapy can be supplemented with any technique of acupuncture. Based on numerous studies, acupuncture effectively reduces the incidence of postoperative nausea, has an anxiolytic and analgesic effect, and also has an anti-inflammatory effect caused by surgical stress. There are rarely contraindications to its application, accurate knowledge of the rules of point selection and with proper technique acupuncture is a low-risk, pain-free procedure that can be performed by inducing a mild needling sensation. Based on all this, it can become a part of multimodal therapy. Orv Hetil. 2023; 164(30): 1187-1193.