Word: poletti
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Surgery is the last recourse of the pain patient. "I spend an awful lot of my time telling people not to have it," says Neurosurgeon Poletti of Massachusetts General Hospital. Although operations to destroy nerves can provide immediate relief, the benefits rarely last more than six months to a year and may be followed by intense, burning pain that is worse than the original complaint. Surgery is often reserved for terminal-cancer patients. For such patients, neurosurgeons have devised delicate operations to cut nerves causing local pain, and even to sever nerve tracts in the spinal cord and brain...