Bonner Back in the Hospital
Soviet dissident Yelena Bonner has been readmitted to the hospital because of complications related to her recent open-heart surgery, a spokesman said today.
Bonner, 62, was brought to the hospital by relatives Tuesday night, said Martin Bander, spokesman at Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was listed in good condition today. She had undergone surgery Jan. 13 to bypass three main arteries and three branch arteries in her heart and had been released from the hospital Monday.
“She was concerned when, at her family’s home in Newton, she developed a moderate elevation in temperature in addition to the chest pain she began to experience two days ago,” Bander said.
He said the discomfort was diagnosed as pericarditis, an irritation of the lining around the heart that develops in 30% of all patients after open-heart surgery.
Bonner’s doctor, Adolph Hutter, said pericarditis is treated with an anti-inflammatory agent such as aspirin and subsides “nicely in time.”
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