Minneapolis surgeon's unusual aortic procedure is saving lives

A Minneapolis vascular surgeon is one of the few doctors across the country to treat aortic aneurysms in the area between the navel and kidneys without surgery, providing a less invasive way to fix what can often be a silent killer. "What this has done is open the door to people who were denied surgery in the past, so they can have much better results," said Dr. Jesse Manunga of Abbott Northwestern Hospital. "The idea was: 'What if we can take a graft and make it fit the patient?'?" An aortic aneurysm is a potentially deadly blood-filled bulge in the aorta, the main artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body.