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CNN Live Saturday
Expert Talks About Vice President's Shiny New Pacemaker
Aired June 30, 2001 - 17:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Each year, thousands of Americans receive defibrillators and pacemakers to keep their hearts beating normally. And here to discuss today's procedure on the vice president and the device used is Doctor Jonathan Langberg, who is professor of medicine at Emory University Medical School and director of Emory's Cardiac Electro-Physiology Laboratory. And I guess the best way to understand that, doctor as you said, you're an electrician, not a plumber.
DR. JONATHAN LANGBERG, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Absolutely right. We focus on heart rhythm problems rather than blocked coronary arteries.
FRAZIER: And do you that, as you were telling us earlier, with these electrical devices. You brought some to explain what it was that was actually implanted in the vice president. And I am glad you have that so we can get a sense physically of how large it is and how deep it would have to be in his body.
LANGBERG: Vice President Cheney described the defibrillator as a pacemaker plus, but it's really more than that. A pacemaker very small. And it's designed to keep a patient's heart from going too slowly. The defibrillator is considerably larger and more sophisticated and it is intended to keep a patient from getting into trouble from a dangerously fast heart rhythm.
If the patient's heart suddenly takes off it charges up like an electronic flash on a camera and shocks the patient's heart back into a normal rhythm.
FRAZIER: And where is the shock delivered? I know you brought here what looks to be a clear model of the heart. It is here, resting on the shoulder blade, and then where does the shock actually get transmitted to the heart?
LANGBERG: That's right. It is put in underneath the skin of the chest wall, usually on the left side. And then it is connected to the heart by several wires that are threaded into the vein that's up there in the shoulder. And there advanced through that vein and into the heart as you can see here, so that these wires are capable of counting heart beats on a continuous 24- hour-a-day basis.
And if the heart goes out of rhythm, it will detect that immediately, and then deliver a pulse of electricity through these same wires to restore the heart rhythm to normal. FRAZIER: This is an excellent way to see it but its a little bit difficult on camera because the wires are almost as translucent as the model of the heart itself. So there one wire can I see threading in the vein. That's the monitoring wire? And is the second what delivers the restarting electricity, or do they both do the same thing?
LANGBERG: They are both for purposes of monitoring and delivering the high voltage electric shock. I think you can think about a defibrillator as having a paramedic in your chest on stand-by 24 hours a day, so that if you get into trouble he will detect that immediately and rescue you.
FRAZIER: And in your experience, Doctor, with patients who have been given these, what is their life like?
LANGBERG: Most patients who have these have no restrictions whatsoever as the result of having a defibrillator. These devices, once they heal in place, are not particularly noticeable or cumbersome and patients can be fully physically active doing pretty much whatever they want.
FRAZIER: As could you look at Vice President Cheney's history, does it sound to you like he is going to have to slow down -- after all, four heart attacks and then a clogged artery most recently, and what seems to be a persistent pattern -- I know you can't diagnose by long distance, but it just seems to be from a layman's point of view, trouble that just does not go away.
LANGBERG: This defibrillator in Vice President Cheney's case is a form of insurance. It is a very common situation to have episodes of rapid heart beats in patients who have had previous heart attacks, so I look at this as a way of making sure that even though he is going to continue full steam ahead, that he will be safe.
FRAZIER: He has got a lot to do so we are gratified to learn that he will be safe. Dr. Langberg, thank you very much for explaining all that for us. Jonathan Langberg of Emery University Medical Center.
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