11.   It would aim to cut costs by concentrating complicated care, such as transplants and invasive surgery, at one site or the other.

12.   Minimally invasive surgery allows certain operations to be done through small incisions, rather than cutting people open.

13.   Minimally invasive surgery is performed through small cuts in the body, using cameras mounted on flexible tubes.

14.   Now, the overwhelming majority of gallbladders are removed by such minimally invasive surgery.

15.   Ophthalmologists opposed that effort, saying it is invasive surgery that only they should be allowed to perform since they are medical doctors and optometrists are not.

16.   One concern with minimally invasive surgery is that it may leave some cancerous cells behind in the margins, but so far, studies have found the margins clean.

17.   Over the last decade, the field of minimally invasive surgery has been saving increasing numbers of patients from painful hospital stays.

18.   Over the past three decades, researchers have come up with new ways of treating this condition, from oral medications to minimally invasive surgery.

19.   Reardon added that most successful beating-heart surgeries have been done in teaching hospitals that have developed an entire program around minimally invasive surgeries.

20.   Several researchers today said the most likely use for the minimally invasive surgeries will be in some form of combination with angioplasty and other procedures.