"This is an extreme case and highlights what we are now able to achieve with experience and the precision of modern surgical technology, " said Mr Daya.

BBC: Thalidomide poses new challenges

As a young patent lawyer in the early 1960s he went behind the Iron Curtain and brought back the metal sutures that gave birth to U.S. Surgical Corp. and the technology to make soft contact lenses.

FORBES: Death Grip

Credit the trend to overcrowded hospitals, better technology (allowing more surgical procedures to be done safely in an office setting) and the doctors' desire to get paid.

FORBES: Cutting Hospitals Out Of Surgery

In collaboration with leading clinicians, researchers and scientists worldwide, Medtronic offers the broadest range of innovative medical technology for the interventional and surgical treatment of cardiovascular disease and cardiac arrhythmias.

FORBES: About the Symplicity? Renal Denervation System

Efforts to promote 3-D printing for surgical purposes come at a time when the technology is evolving faster, drawing renewed attention in the media and generating buzz among consumers world-wide.

WSJ: Next to Use 3-D Printing: Your Surgeon

In 1995 he sued a subsidiary of U.S. Surgical (now Covidien) for infringing his patents on a fusion technology.

FORBES: Animal Nut

Matthias Werner, a technology analyst at Deutsche Bank, illustrates this second type of nanotechnology breakthrough graphically with videos of a surgical scalpel based on a nanostructured diamond.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR