Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Surgical procedures are often introduced into practice without rigorous evaluation. Moreover, clinical trials of surgery have seldom included placebo surgery as a control, owing to ethical concerns. In 1959, the Journal published the results of a placebo-controlled trial of ligation of the internal thoracic artery for the treatment of angina.1 In this issue of the Journal, Moseley et al. report on a placebo-controlled trial of arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee.2 In both studies, the surgical interventions were no more effective than placebo operations. A major difference between the use of placebo surgery 43 years ago and its use . . .
Horng et al. (2002) studied this question.