For years, wire mesh tubes called stents have been used to prop open blocked heart arteries.

Now, the same stents are being used in some people who have blocked arteries in their neck. The development is considered a big breakthrough for patients who can''t have general surgery.

About 200 thousand operations to open carotid arteries are done every year. But because of other medical problems, five to ten per cent of people with this kind of blockage aren''t candidates for the traditional operation. That''s why these new carotid stents are considered such a big breakthrough.

At 76, Jack Radcliff''s carotid artery in his neck was almost completely blocked, "95 percent."

But a quadruple bypass 10 years ago meant he couldn''t have an operation to clear it.

So Dr. Gregorio Sicard, chief of vascular and general surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, presented him with a new option approved by the FDA just four months ago. It starts with a puncture in the groin, using local anesthetic, while the patient is awake.

"A needle placed in artery and the wires and catheters are guided with imaging with x-ray imaging into the location where you want to treat the lesion in the neck," explains Dr. Sicard.

Then the metal stent is placed in the artery, pushing the plaque out of the way and restoring blood flow. This illustration shows the stent in place. The technique has been under development for ten years.

"In some of these patients there would be no option, I think this is the exciting part," says Dr. Sicard.

"I had a little pain in the jaw and that''s the only pain I ever had and it was temporary," says Radcliff, who was awake during the procedure.

"They kept saying Jack are you okay? And I said yeah I''m okay," says Radcliff.

He measures the effectiveness of his minimally invasive surgery in terms of golf. He was out of the hospital overnight. His clubs were back in his hands just a week later. "I thought it was kind of impossible, I was really surprised at the technology and the way it was carried out."

Surgeons say soon, patients will be allowed to go home the same day the stents are placed, dramatically reducing the recovery time compared to traditional surgery.