 Each year, some 200,000 Americans undergo bypass surgery for coronary heart disease. Most coronary heart disease is caused by arteries clogged with plaque and fatty deposits. In a very limited number of cases, an inflatable balloon cavity can be used to squeeze the obstruction out of the way. To treat multiple blockages, bypass surgery is the only available treatment. 20 to $30,000 procedure requiring weeks of recovery time. New technology, like this eczema laser and a fiber optic device called an angioscope, hold great promise for revolutionizing the treatment of coronary heart disease. Hulsing a billionth of a second bursts of ultraviolet light, the eczema laser represents technology originally developed by a group of researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Doctors at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles have teamed up with JBL and are working on an angioscope which will allow a surgeon to see obstructions as well as transmit laser energy to vaporize plaque from arteries. Cedars-Sinai's director of cardiovascular research, Dr. James Forrester. Right now, the way we would plan to do the procedure is to make a small incision either in the arm or the leg and pass a catheter or small tube up to the location where an obstruction in a blood vessel existed. We would be able to see it through our fiber optic device. And then we would under visual control deliver energy that would instantly vaporize that obstruction, restoring blood flow in that blood vessel. The technique called laser coronary angioplasty is in the preclinical stages of development. The patient testing scheduled to begin in a couple of years. The key to this surgical technique is being able to vaporize plaque with true precision, removing small amounts at a time without causing any heat damage to the tissue. What we'd like to show is that we could remove material without doing heat damage to surrounding tissue. To take an ordinary match, I'll put it near the focus of the laser beam. You can see I've eaten away half the head of the match with the laser beam, but have not let it on fire. This demonstrates how we can cut tissue without causing thermal damage to the surrounding tissue. Can you just give me a test shot? The dual middermat of the JPL laser beam demonstrates the exomer's capability on a section of human aorta heavily deposited with plaque. You can see this clean, precisely cut hole has been made by the laser. Note that there's no evidence of blackening or any thermal damage either in the hole or to the surrounding areas. This is a magnified cross-section of tissue cut with an exomer laser. If you compare this to the work of an argon laser being used in surgery today, it is easy to understand why the exomer has so much potential. Argon lasers are very heat intense and cause burning and carbonization of the tissue. Often this effect will cause blockages to reform in the arteries. Originally developed for atmospheric ozone testing, the exomer laser may prove to simplify the treatment of coronary plaque and help curb America's number one killer heart disease.