Not surprising that cardiac surgeons were reluctant to see this performed and are doing as much as they can to limit the extent of its use.<p>Because interventional cardiologists are performing the procedure (not surgeons, at least initially) this hurts the cardiac surgeons' revenue (and could ultimately replace open surgery - making the expertise that surgeons have achieved over decades become redundant, thus lowering their power, prestige and influence).<p>Of course, when surgeons start training in these techniques, they'll start swearing by them (whilst stating emphatically that they're the only doctors that should be doing them).<p>This is an enormous problem across medicine - specialists (especially surgeons) not wanting to lose turf to other less invasive options, which harms patient care across the board - see also intracranial aneurysm treatment (surgical clipping vs endovascular treatment), abdominal aortic aneurysm treatment (open surgery vs. endovascular), fibroid treatment (hysterectomy vs. minimally invasive options) and oncology treatments (surgery and radiotherapy vs. interventional minimally invasive procedures).<p>Always get a second (and third) opinion and look for alternatives before agreeing to have an invasive surgery - that's not an endorsement of new age alternative BS though, do your own research.