[NYTr] Be Still, My Heart! Cheney's in atrial fibrillation!

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via Yahoo - Nov 26, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071126/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_irregular_heartbeat

Cheney experiences irregular heartbeat

By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent

Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a history of heart problems,
experienced an irregular heartbeat Monday and was taken to George
Washington University Hospital for evaluation.

The condition was detected when Cheney was seen by doctors around 7
a.m. at the White House for a lingering cough from a cold. He remained
at work throughout the day, joining President Bush in meetings with
Mideast leaders.

"During examination he was incidentally found to have an irregular
heartbeat, which on further testing was determined to be atrial
fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the
heart," said spokeswoman Megan Mitchell.

She said Cheney went to the hospital around 5 p.m. She said that if
necessary, he would be receive cardioversion, a procedure that involves
the delivery of an electric impulse to the heart.

About 2.8 million Americans have atrial fibrillation, the most common
type of irregular heartbeat, and cases are increasing as the population
ages.

The condition occurs when the heart's top chambers, called the atria,
get out of sync with the bottom chambers' pumping action. It is not
immediately life-threatening, and the heart sometimes gets back into
rhythm on its own. Many times, patients aren't aware of an episode of
atrial fibrillation.

But if the irregular heartbeat continues, it eventually can cause a
life-threatening complication — the formation of blood clots that can
shoot to the brain and cause a stroke.

The main treatment is to try an electrical shock to restore normal
heartbeat. If that doesn't work, patients may need to take the blood
thinner warfarin to reduce stroke risk.

Other options include anti-arrhythmic drugs or, for severe a-fib,
surgical procedures to interrupt the faulty heartbeat.

Cheney has had four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, two
artery-clearing angioplasties and an operation to implant a
defibrillator six years ago. In July he had surgery to replace the
defibrillator which monitors his heartbeat.

The type of defibrillator Cheney has is used to prevent sudden death
from a very different type of irregular heartbeat that starts in the
bottom of the heart. The atrial fibrillation, in contrast, requires a
different type of treatment.

In 2005, Cheney had six hours of surgery on his legs to repair a kind
of aneurysm, a ballooning weak spot in an artery that can burst if left
untreated. In March, doctors discovered that he had a deep venous
thrombosis in his left lower leg. After an ultrasound in late April,
doctors said the clot was slowly getting smaller.

AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.

On the Net:

National Institutes of Health on atrial fibrillation:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/af/af_what.html

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved