By Jesse Liebman --
February 12, 2010
Doctors say former President Bill Clinton was able to get up two hours after undergoing a procedure on Thursday known as angioplasty, in which two stents were placed in a clogged heart artery. Clinton could be released Friday and go back to work at his foundation Monday.
Clinton had been feeling repeated discomfort in his chest, and tests showed that one of the bypasses from his 2004 quadruple bypass surgery was completely blocked. There was no sign that Clinton had suffered a heart attack, and the new blockage was not the result of his diet.
Compared to a bypass procedure, some advantages of angioplasty are that it doesn't require an incision or general anesthesia, and usually offers a shorter recovery time, the National Institutes of Health said on its Website.
Clinton has not had a heart attack and has done everything
right since his bypass - eating well, exercising, keeping his blood pressure
and cholesterol in check, said his cardiologist, Dr. Allan Schwartz at New York
Presbyterian Hospital.
"This was not a result of his lifestyle or his diet," Schwartz said at a news conference Thursday night. Since the bypass, "he has really toed the line."
Clinton's ordeal is another example of how heart disease is not curable; the procedure he underwent is likely one that he will have to repeat every few years.
Dr. William O'Neill, a cardiologist and executive dean of clinical affairs at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine explained how the procedure doesn't shorten a patient's lifespan.
"I've done 10 or 15 in a single patient over a period of time," O'Neill said. "And they still live as long as they don't have a heart attack and suffer damage."
