[2][3][4][5][6] In 1939 Fieschi introduced internal mammary ligation as a procedure to improve blood flow to the heart.
[4] Subsequently, over 90% of surveyed investigators believed that future neurosurgical interventions (e.g. gene transfer therapies) should be evaluated by sham-controlled studies as these are superior to open-control designs, and have found it unethical to conduct an open-control study because the design is not strong enough to protect against the placebo effect and bias.
[4] Kim et al. point out that sham procedures can differ significantly in invasiveness, for instance in neurosurgical experiments the investigator may drill a burr hole to the dura mater only or enter the brain.
[4] In March 2013 a sham surgical study of a popular but biologically inexplicable venous balloon angioplasty procedure for multiple sclerosis showed the surgery was no better than placebo.
In a 2016 study it was found that arthroscopic partial meniscectomy does not offer any benefit over sham surgery in relieving symptoms of knee locking or catching in patients with degenerative meniscal tears.