An experimental study of the effects of distant, intercessory prayer on self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.

Design: Randomized, controlled, double-blind study.

Patients: 496 volunteers: those who prayed (agents, n = 90) and those who were prayed for (subjects, n = 406).

Intervention: Agents were randomly assigned to either a directed or nondirected prayer group; photos and names of subjects were used as a focus.

Microsurgical treatment of arteriovenous malformations in critical areas of the brain.

Between June 1981 and November 1989, 56 patients who had arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) in critical areas of the brain, in deeply placed sites or were of large size were excised using microsurgical techniques. In 44 cases one-stage surgery was used and in 10 cases deliberate surgical staging was performed. In four cases routine postoperative angiography revealed residual AVM.

Effect of calcitonin-gene-related peptide on postoperative neurological deficits after subarachnoid haemorrhage.

An infusion of calcitonin-gene-related peptide (CGRP) at progressively increased concentrations was given to 15 patients with neurological deficits after intracranial aneurysm surgery for subarachnoid haemorrhage. In 9 of the patients the deficits, quantified by a modified Glasgow coma scale, improved with no adverse effects; after a placebo infusion only 2 of the 15 patients showed improvement. If CGRP can reverse cerebral ischaemia after early intracranial aneurysm surgery, its use may improve the safety of such early surgery, remove the need for late surgery with its increased risk of death from rebleeding, and reduce overall morbidity and mortality of aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage.

Epilepsy following neurosurgical intervention.

The incidence of post-surgical epilepsy has been reported to be very high, and related to the pathological condition, to the surgery itself, and, particularly in the case of aneurysms, to the site of the lesion. Prophylactic anti-convulsant medication has been widely recommended on the basis of the perceived high risk of epilepsy. A prospective analysis of one hundred consecutive survivors of aneurysm surgery treated in a consistent microsurgical manner was performed to assess the incidence and causation of post-operative seizures.

Spinal cord compression due to thoracic disc herniation: results of microsurgical posterolateral costotransversectomy.

Fifteen consecutive patients with thoracic disc herniation treated by posterolateral microsurgical costotransversectomy are described. With appropriate modifications to the standard technique, costotransversectomy was found to be a suitable approach even for calcified central discs, and discs which had eroded intradurally. All patients had evidence of spinal cord compression preoperatively with varying degrees of leg weakness.