The new procedures have put vascular surgeons on alert as specialists in the less-invasive techniques are usurping their most lucrative procedures. "The smart vascular surgeons are trying to figure out how to do this," said Snell, whose work focuses increasingly on vascular treatments that don't involve the heart. Bruce Perler, chief of vascular surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, said the minimally invasive procedures are an enormous growth area. "There are turf battles breaking out all over the country," he said. Mike in Brazil In one set of clinical trials at Rush and other medical centers, researchers are looking whether stents are as effective as surgery in clearing the carotid artery in the neck. If the artery becomes clogged with fatty deposits, or plaques, there is a high risk of stroke. In conventional surgery, doctors scrape away plaques through a cut in the neck that requires several days of hospital recovery. But with a catheter, the artery is cleared in a one- or two-hour procedure usually followed by a one-night hospital stay. Robert Eisen recently had his clogged carotid artery repaired through a two-hour stenting procedure using a catheter threaded through his groin at Chicago's Rush. 8th street latinas Eisen, 78, said the choice between major surgery and stenting was easy. He had lingering numbness on his left side from a mountain biking accident and was keen to avoid neck surgery that might worsen his condition. "I also wanted to avoid general anesthesia," said Eisen, who had had trouble awaking from a previous surgery. "Patients would always prefer a less painful, simpler and quick procedure as long as the outcomes are similar," said Gregg Stone, director of cardiovascular research at Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute in New York. "I think that is the whole impetus of developing anything minimally invasive."