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Clot is found in Cheney’s leg after he spent 65 hours on jet

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Times Staff Writers

Vice President Dick Cheney is being treated for a blood clot in his left leg, his office announced Monday -- a condition that, if left untreated, can be deadly if the clot breaks loose and reaches the heart, brain or lungs.

The vice president, who has had four heart attacks and experienced other cardiovascular problems over the last three decades, is being treated with blood-thinning medication, said his deputy press secretary, Megan McGinn.

Such clots can form as a result of inactivity, such as extended periods of sitting during long plane flights. Cheney, 66, returned to Washington on Wednesday from a nine-day, 22,827-mile trip in which he spent 65 hours in the air on a route that took him from Washington to Alaska, Japan, Australia, Oman, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Oman again and Britain.

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Monday morning, he delivered an 18-minute address to a Veterans of Foreign Wars conference. Then, experiencing what McGinn called “mild calf discomfort,” he was taken to his doctor’s office at George Washington University “in light of his recent prolonged air travel.”

The clot was discovered during an ultrasound, according to McGinn, who said Cheney was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, in his left lower leg.

The vice president will be treated with anti-clotting medication for several months, McGinn said.

She said Cheney’s office would not identify what he was taking because it had never disclosed his medications.

After seeing his doctor, Cheney returned to the White House, where he worked in his office and met with staff members. “He is at work as we speak, and he is doing just fine,” McGinn said during the afternoon.

DVT -- sometimes called “economy-class syndrome” because of its frequency among air travelers cramped for hours in seats with little leg room -- often produces cramps, swelling and tenderness.

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The discomfort can be temporary, but if part of the thrombus, or clot, breaks free, it can lodge in the heart, brain or lungs, causing a potentially fatal heart attack, stroke or pulmonary embolism.

Obesity, immobility and age are among the risk factors for DVT, said Dr. Leslie Saxon, chief of cardiology at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

The factors can be multiplied by air travel, she said, because the oxygen levels in airplanes, lower than at ground level, reduce oxygen in the bloodstream, which increases the risk of clots. The dry air of the airplane increases dehydration, another risk factor for clotting, she said.

In addition, “people who have heart and circulation problems don’t have as vigorous a flow” of blood as healthier people, Saxon said.

The vice president had his first heart attack when he was 37.

Since then, he has been treated for multiple heart and vascular issues, most recently undergoing surgery in September 2005 to treat swelling in the arteries behind both knees.

He has had quadruple bypass surgery, two artery-clearing angioplasty procedures and an operation to implant a pacemaker, designed to start automatically to regulate his heartbeat if needed. His last heart attack, which his doctors described as “very slight,” was in November 2000.

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Cheney has struggled with his weight for years. At a 2004 campaign stop in Wisconsin, for example, he walked into a custard shop and ordered a cup of coffee, tasting just one spoonful of the rich dessert his wife had ordered.

He has traveled with an exercise cycle stored in the cargo hold of Air Force Two, generally a narrow-body Boeing 757 that includes a private cabin, bed and couches.

On his most recent trip, his office said, he brought a recumbent exercise bike.

An estimated 2 million Americans develop DVT each year, and about 300,000 die, primarily because they do not recognize the symptoms and seek treatment, said Dr. Frank Michota, a DVT expert at the Cleveland Clinic.

The standard treatment does carry some risk of promoting internal bleeding, Saxon said, but the risk is “extraordinarily low.” Patients are typically given an intravenous infusion of the anti-clotting agent heparin.

Alternatively, they receive injections of Lovenox, a form of heparin that can be safely administered at home, Michota said. After about a week of that treatment, they are switched to warfarin, an anticoagulant tablet that is taken for three to six months.

If patients receive adequate treatment, there is no increased risk in flying and no other limitations on activity, Michota said.

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Cheney’s spokeswoman would not say whether the vice president’s schedule would be altered as a result of his diagnosis.

Coincidentally, this month is the fourth annual Deep Vein Thrombosis Awareness Month, a public health initiative designed to alert the public to the ailment’s risks.

“DVT kills more people every year than breast cancer and AIDS combined,” Michota said, “but when people have a pain in their leg, they often just shrug it off.”

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james.gerstenzang@latimes.com

thomas.maugh@latimes.com

Gerstenzang reported from Washington, Maugh from

Los Angeles.

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