The results of the first major prospective study of near-death experiences, conducted over a 13-year-long period and set up in ten different hospitals in the Netherlands, was published in the international medical journal The Lancet, vol. 358, issue 9298.

This scientific study included 344 cardiac patients who were successfully resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest and compared demographic, pharmacological, and psychological data between patients who reported NDEs and patients who did not after successful resuscitation.

The study found that 62 patients, 18 percent, reported having an NDE with 41 patients, 12 percent, describing a core NDE. The study also compared life changes between the NDE group and the control group after 2 and 8 years.