The US Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, who suffered a fourth heart attack last November, left a hospital early yesterday to rest a day after an interventional procedure to reopen a narrowed artery.
The White House repeatedly termed the angioplasty "precautionary", but the incident raised new questions about whether Mr Cheney, who underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1988, can handle the high stress of his pivotal White House job.
Mr Cheney (60) walked out of George Washington University Hospital around 3.15 p.m. Irish time and shook hands with doctors who treated him on Monday when he checked himself in after suffering four brief episodes of chest discomfort, or angina.
Because Mr Cheney immediately tended to his chest discomfort, it did not lead to muscle damage, which can precipitate a myocardial infarction, causing the Vice-President's fifth heart attack. "No work restrictions have been placed on the VicePresident, who intends to resume his schedule later this week," a leading Cheney adviser, Ms Mary Matalin, said in a statement.
"The President looks forward to his return to work in the very near future," the White House spokesman, Mr Scott McClellan, said, declining to say whether Mr Cheney's work load would be trimmed.
In November doctors performed angioplasty on Mr Cheney after he suffered his fourth heart attack since 1978 and inserted a tiny wire scaffolding called a stent to prop an artery open and allow for normal blood flow.
The latest intervention, due to the re-stenosis, or reblocking, of the coronary artery, "was necessitated by a common complication of the stent procedure, not a progression of his heart disease", said Ms Matalin, who added that EKGs and cardiac enzyme test results were normal.