Bypassing the trauma

A Silicon Valley startup has pioneered what could be the most significant advance in heart surgery in decades. Over the past 5 months, surgeons at Stanford University have used technology from Heartport Inc. to perform single-bypass procedures on 3 patients - without ever opening their chests. Rather, they made a handful of tiny incisions and used a series of novel catheters, sophisticated imaging microscopes, and other special instruments to operated through narrow tubes. Port-access heart surgery is the latest is a string of impressive minimally invasive procedures that have transformed many surgical procedures in recent years.