Eficacia de la acupuntura en el tratamiento de los síntomas postoperatorio en cirugía pediátrica ambulatoria

background: postoperative symptoms in ambulatory pediatric surgery constitute a health problem. its incidence and utilization of medications, in sensitive patients may be risky. objective: to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture treatment in postoperative symptoms like: pain, nausea and vomiting, in ambulatory pediatric surgery. method: an early phase ii clinical trial was conducted, in order to determine the acupuncture′s efficacy of postoperative symptoms in children (10 to 14 years), at the teaching provincial pediatric hospital eduardo agramonte pi？a of camagüey from january to june 2009. the universe was constituted by 370 patients subject to ambulatory surgery and the sample was made up of 30 patients that fulfilled the inclusion criteria. variables analyzed were: anesthetic method, postoperative symptoms, pain evaluation scale and efficacy of therapeutics. results: the endotracheal general anesthesia prevailed in the 76, 67 %. the postoperative pain was presented in the 66, 67 %. vomiting in the 23, 33 % and nausea appeared in 10 % of patients, the last two disappeared completely. all patients with mild pain obtained satisfactory response. a good therapeutic efficacy in the 93, 33 % was demonstrated at the end of the treatment. conclusions: the pain was the most frequent postoperative symptom. nausea and vomiting were eliminated completely.