Cheney's Heart Is Deemed Stable

Checkup Finds No Problems

Vice President Cheney had his annual physical yesterday at George Washington University Hospital. Doctors checked his pacemaker and the stents in his knees. (By Manuel Balce Ceneta -- Associated Press)

Vice President Cheney's high-tech pacemaker is working properly and has not been activated by any irregular heartbeats, according to his annual physical yesterday, which showed that his overall heart condition was stable.

The 65-year-old Cheney has a long history of heart ailments. He went to George Washington University Hospital for the electrocardiogram and imaging to check on repaired aneurysms on the back of his knees, his spokeswoman said.

Doctors also checked the condition of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator that was placed in his chest in June 2001.

Cheney has had four heart attacks; the first in 1978, when he was 37, and the fourth on Nov. 22, 2000, after the election that made George W. Bush president.

"The vice president's cardiac status remains stable, his ICD is functioning properly and has not treated any arrhythmia," or irregular heartbeat, said a statement from his spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride.

Cheney will have a stress test on a treadmill in the fall as part of a comprehensive cardiac evaluation.

Bernadette Aulivola, a vascular surgeon at Loyola University Health System in suburban Chicago, said it was a good sign that Cheney's defibrillator had not been activated since it was last checked.

"If he had had an irregular heartbeat, the ICD would have kicked in," Aulivola said.

The physical did not slow Cheney's pace. His schedule for the rest of yesterday: flying to Florida for the launch, now delayed, of the shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center; and heading for the Pepsi 400 at the Daytona International Speedway.

In addition to the four heart attacks, the vice president has had quadruple bypass surgery and two artery-clearing angioplasties.

In September, he 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. Cheney had flexible stent grafts put in his knee arteries. Fully opened stents keep the rushing blood from touching the weakened artery walls.

"The stent grafts used to treat the popliteal artery aneurysms are wide open," McBride said.

That means the blood flow is normal and the grafts have not clogged, Aulivola said. Patients who have had this kind of surgery typically get intermittent checkups, often once a year, Aulivola said.