1.   But Akchurin looks through them only while removing the internal mammary artery from beneath the rib cage.

2.   For the third bypass, he severs one end of the nearby internal mammary artery and connects it to the heart.

3.   In the first stage of the operation, surgeons prepare the internal mammary artery while watching on a video monitor.

4.   The diseased area of the mammary artery was snipped out, and it was replaced past the point of the damage.

5.   Then, while stitching the grafts made from the mammary artery and veins taken from the leg, Akchurin turns to the higher magnification afforded by operating microscopes.

6.   They freed four inches of the mammary artery in its vertical course between the second and fifth ribs.

7.   To obtain veins for the grafts, surgeons usually detach and remove a length of the internal mammary artery that runs down the chest inside the ribs.

8.   Wearing optical loupes that magnify three times, the surgeons probed for the mammary artery.

9.   When surgeons use the mammary artery in the chest to bypass a blockage, the results usually last for a decade.

10.   Finally, he sews the mammary artery to the third blocked heart artery.