Surgery for Ike?

To other public discussion of President Eisenhower's heart was added last week a recommendation from Cleveland's noted Heart Surgeon Claude S. Beck which stirred up a loud murmur of controversy. The recommendation: that Ike be examined in six months and, "if this proves the risk to be not too great," that he submit to heart surgery to extend his life expectancy and permit him to carry a bigger work load.

Dr. Beck mentioned President Eisenhower as a candidate for the operation after he had described its technique before the annual assembly of the District of Columbia Medical Society in Washington. The operation, known in medical circles simply as "Beck 1," is one which he pioneered 19 years ago. In it, the surgeon slits open the sac surrounding the heart, and rubs both the inside of the sac and the heart itself with a rough-headed instrument, causing acute inflammation. Finely powdered asbestos is then sprinkled on the heart covering, and the resulting abrasive action between the heart and its sac adds to the inflammation and causes the heart and the sac to adhere. When that happens, a richer supply of blood passes to the damaged heart through the walls of the sac. A large vein (the coronary sinus) is then tied to slow drainage from the heart, and a piece of fat in the heart sac is sewed to the heart surface in the hope that it will provide additional circulation.

Over the years, Dr. Beck has performed such operations nearly 300 times. In the last 100 operations, he has had only six fatalities, all of them, he claims, from the normal deterioration of badly diseased hearts rather than from the operation itself. The principal purpose of the operation, says Beck, is to "take the steam out of successive attacks," which occur in 50% to 80% of coronary cases, with the chances of survival steadily decreasing. Said he to reporters: "Coronary surgery can't cure, but it ... prolongs the patient's life and makes him more comfortable. Nine of ten patients who receive the operation are back at work and free or almost free of pain." He added that Ike's doctors probably would not take to his suggestion because "they are not converts to heart surgery."

Many of Beck's fellow heart specialists pointed out that 300 operations is not a large enough statistical sampling to make a case for or against the Beck technique. Dr. Paul Dudley White, Ike's chief specialist and no enemy of heart surgery, had no comment.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.