Music may help fans prepare for potentially life-saving surgery even if it does not add anything extra to their prospects of survival, researchers suggest today.

Other therapies, including healing touch, abdominal breathing exercises and picturing their most beautiful peaceful places, seemed to lower emotional distress in those about to undergo operations on their coronary arteries.

Patients who remained conscious during procedures to open narrowed arteries via catheters inserted through the skin were able to wear headphones with their favoured musical accompaniment, whether it be country, classical or jazz, researchers reported in the Lancet medical journal.

The study, involving more than 700 patients and led by doctors at the Duke Medical Centre, North Carolina, found no statistically significant difference in their survival rates after six months however, even if death rates were slightly lower than among those not offered the therapy.

The power of distant prayer, including from Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist groups away from the hospitals involved in the study, had no discernible effect. Patients did not know they were being prayed for.

Such therapies, not using tangible drugs or medical devices, might help slow heart rates, relax blood vessels or calm the mind, as well as promoting healing in undefined ways, some people believe.

Dr Mitchell Krucoff, who led the research, said: "If we want to understand the role of human capacities and resources in the midst of our most advanced medical technologies, we have to do good science."