Ex-Polish leader gets pacemaker
2008-02-29 13:07
Houston - Doctors are hoping that a pacemaker will keep Nobel laureate and former Polish President Lech Walesa from needing a heart transplant.
Walesa, who came to Houston for tests this week, is scheduled to have the device implanted on Friday at Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center.
"The goal is to help his heart function improve," hospital spokesperson Erin Fairchild said.
Walesa, 64, will have a biventricular pacemaker-defibrillator implanted. The pacemaker will synchronise the contractions of his heart, while the defibrillator will be on standby to shock the heart if needed, Fairchild said. Biventricular means it's working on both sides of the heart, she said.
On Wednesday, Walesa had a stent implanted into a clogged coronary artery.
Fairchild said the pacemaker - about the size of a stopwatch - will be implanted through a 2.5cm incision on Friday. She said that the surgery could last as long as five hours, but could be shorter.
It is hoped that the pacemaker will prevent or at least postpone the need for a heart transplant.
"Ideally, we'd want to prevent the need for a heart transplant altogether," Fairchild said.
Walesa, a former Gdansk shipyard electrician, led a workers' strike in 1980 that grew into the nationwide Solidarity freedom movement against Poland's communist authorities, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.
In 1989, Solidarity toppled Poland's communist regime and Walesa went on to serve as Poland's first democratically elected president, from 1990-95.
___
On the Net:
http://www.methodisthealth.com
- AP