Cheney About to Undergo Heart Study
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It has been often said the vice president is just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Usually that means the president's heart. But today it's Vice President Cheney's heart that is the issue. Mr. Cheney now at George Washington University Medical Center to undergo a heart test that should last one or two hours. CNN medical correspondent Rea Blakey is on the scene and she has the latest for us -- Rea.</s>REA BLAKEY, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The test Vice President Cheney said he would be undergoing is called an electrophysiology study, or EPS. In this test, several catheters are run through the femoral vein or sometimes the arm to the heart, where they're used to stress the electrical system of the heart. The goal is to see if irregular heartbeats are produced. If so, there may be a need for an implantable defibrillator, similar to the size of a pacemaker.</s>DR. STUART SEIDES, WASHINGTON HOSPITAL CENTER: It's a device that is implanted in a patient that can detect abnormal, usually rapid heart rhythms and deliver an electric shock to the heart that can right the rhythm and often save the patient's life.</s>BLAKEY: Doctors were alerted to Cheney's irregular heartbeats when they were detected by a portable heart monitor he was wearing. Although he didn't feel the abnormal rhythms, doctors were still concerned.</s>SEIDES: It's been well documented that patients like that who do not have defibrillators run the risk of sudden death -- sudden cardiac death at a rate that far exceeds those who have the defibrillators.</s>BLAKEY: Cheney has had four heart attacks from 1978 to November 2000. In March, he had a catheterization to open a possibly blocked artery in his heart.</s>SEIDES: There have been trials that have shown that implanting defibrillators in patients like that can improve their prognosis.</s>BLAKEY: Experts estimate about 25 percent of people who've had a heart attack need an implantable cardiac defibrillator, or ICD. The American Heart Association says in 1998, 26,000 patients received defibrillators.</s>BLAKEY: Again, the American College of Cardiology says that these defibrillators are 99 percent effective at avoiding sudden death from arrhythmia, which is what apparent the doctors believe the vice president is suffering from. You'll recall, as we mentioned just moments ago, the vice president arrived here at George Washington University Hospital within the last two minutes. He looked quite well this morning. He didn't seem to linger very long, stepped right inside the hospital. As we mentioned, he's had four heart attacks since 1948 and he does have chronic coronary artery disease. The doctors have indicated, by way of the vice president's office, that these tests today are not an indication of a progression of his heart disease, that, in fact, this is basically a result of the many heart attacks that he has already had. Dr. Douglas Zipes, who is the president of the American College of Cardiology, says if, in fact, the vice president is implanted with this particular defibrillator, it would be like having an emergency room in the vice president's chest. Thus, this particular machine would continuously regulate, Miles, the vice president's heartbeat so that if an arrhythmia occurred, the machine would immediately correct the heartbeat and the vice president very likely would not even know that the machine had actually kicked in -- Miles.</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Rea, clarify something here. Is it a pacemaker or is it not a pacemaker? I think the vice president used the term pacemaker plus. I think he might have coined a phrase there. I've read somewhere where it might be a pacemaker and a defibrillator, sort of, you know, two things in one. Why don't you clear that up for us, please?</s>BLAKEY: Quite frankly, you're absolutely right. I believe he coined the term, as well, pacemaker plus. What he was referring to was the fact that this defibrillator, and depending on the type that may potentially be implanted, we don't know yet until the doctors do this EPS test. But depending on the type that might be implanted, it basically may simply be a defibrillator that, in fact, charges the heart when the heart beats too fast or it may have a dual function like a pacemaker to slow the heart down, I'm sorry, to speed the heart up if it's beating too slowly. The more dangerous of the arrythmias is the type that we believe the vice president has, which is where the heart beats too quickly. If the heart betas too slowly, basically a person would become dizzy, perhaps confused, lethargic. If it betas too quickly, the heart can't pump enough blood through the system. And so depending on what the doctors find during the EPS study, then we'll know exactly which type of defibrillator and, i.e., pacemaker-plus, that could be implanted in the vice president's chest.</s>O'BRIEN: All right, that cleared it up for me. Thank you, Rea Blakey. Hope it cleared it up for you at home, as well. We'll be checking in with her all throughout the morning, of course. Rea Blakey at George Washington University Hospital.