Yeltsin’s Health Improves, Setting Stage for Surgery

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s heart is stronger, and his internal bleeding has stopped, apparently clearing the way for his coronary bypass operation as early as next week, a consulting American surgeon said Tuesday.

Dr. Michael DeBakey gave his assessment in Houston five weeks after examining the Russian leader in Moscow and after hearing from Yeltsin’s doctors on his progress. He said he will return to Moscow later this week to take part in a final decision on Yeltsin’s fitness for a triple or quadruple bypass.

“His general condition has improved, and his cardiac condition has improved,” DeBakey said in a telephone interview. “So we’ve just about met the criteria we set out to meet, and therefore we are about ready for the operation. That’s why we’re considering it for next week.”

DeBakey’s report indicated that the 65-year-old president, who suffered a heart attack during his summer reelection campaign, is rallying faster than Kremlin doctors expected. They had been saying the surgery would most likely occur in the latter half of November.

If Yeltsin is declared ready for the operation, that will put Russia and its first freely elected leader one step closer to their moment of truth. Yeltsin’s illness has set off a power struggle among would-be successors, unsettling this nuclear-armed nation as it strives to establish a free-market democracy without clear rules of presidential transition.

His surgery, first announced for late September, has already been postponed once because of potential complications. Yeltsin last month was bleeding internally and, as a result, suffered severe anemia. His thyroid gland was weak, and his heart, apparently damaged by the summer attack, needed time to stabilize, experts said.

In the first sign that these problems may have been overcome, presidential spokesman Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky announced Monday that Yeltsin’s meetings with his aides had been canceled for the rest of the week and that preparation for surgery was in the “final phase.”

Yeltsin is undergoing tests at a Kremlin health resort outside Moscow. The first of a series of promised daily bulletins from the Kremlin described his condition Tuesday as “satisfactory” and his temperature and blood pressure as “stable.”

DeBakey said Yeltsin’s bleeding apparently came from the intestines and ceased after the president stopped taking aspirin. Yeltsin also has received blood transfusions that have normalized his condition, DeBakey said. “Most of the things we wanted corrected, like the anemia and the thyroid function, have been corrected,” he said. “I can’t say definitely that he’s ready [for surgery] until I get there. There are still some things I have to look at.”

A pioneer of advances in cardiovascular surgery, DeBakey, 88, has been a key figure in the most openly discussed illness of a Kremlin leader. Though he will not take part in the operation, DeBakey has trained Dr. Renat Akchurin, the Russian surgeon who will lead it, and is advising his 12-member team. At DeBakey’s request, Akchurin visited Houston to acquire state-of-the-art equipment to be used in the operation in Moscow.

The American surgeon’s upbeat assessments of Yeltsin’s health and recovery prospects have lent credibility to those of the president’s spokesmen.