Word: bypassed
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...Thursday, a series of tests, including an angiogram, an electrocardiogram and blood tests, showed no evidence of heart attack or damage to the heart. However, one of the four bypass grafts Clinton received six years ago was completely blocked. Doctors stented one of Clinton's coronary arteries to increase blood flow to the heart...
Cardiac experts say that the blockage of grafted heart vessels is not unusual in bypass patients. Depending on whether the grafts are veins or arteries - the former being smaller and less flexible than the latter - blockage could occur as soon as five years or as late as 10 years following the initial surgery. Schwartz said the bypass graft that was blocked in Clinton's case has about a 10% to 20% failure rate at five to six years...
...important to remember that blocked blood vessels are not an event but a disease," says Dr. Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association, who is not involved in Clinton's care but spoke in general about what to expect after bypass surgery. "We know blockages have their own natural history, and this just highlights the need to always be at the ready...
Clinton, 63, has spent much of the past several weeks in Haiti as the U.N. special envoy to that country, contributing to the relief efforts there after the catastrophic January earthquake. The former President has maintained a rigorous schedule since his bypass surgery, giving speeches, working with his global charitable foundation and accompanying his wife on the campaign trail during her own bid for President...
Even in patients who do everything right - eating a healthy diet, exercising and reducing stress to maintain heart health - new vessels can become blocked again, Yancy says, simply because heart disease is a progressive condition that is not cured by surgery. But it is that much more crucial for bypass patients to control risk factors, maintain healthy weight, lower cholesterol and blood pressure and not smoke in order to decrease the risk of future heart events. "This is a chronic condition," said Schwartz. "We don't have a cure...