Chancellor to have Medical Procedure

(Jan. 31, 2002)   —   ECU Chancellor William V. Muse is scheduled to undergo a procedure Friday in Winston-Salem to clear a partially obstructed blood vessel.

The procedure is considered to carry minimal risk and will require only an overnight stay in the hospital. The chancellor plans to return to work Monday.

Muse, 62, entered Pitt County Memorial Hospital Wednesday and underwent a diagnostic cardiac catheterization after complaining of discomfort in his upper chest.

While Muse was in Alabama last spring, the obstructed vessel was cleared using a common heart procedure known as angioplasty, in which a tiny balloon is inflated in a coronary artery. A stainless steel mesh device called a stent was placed in the vessel to keep it open

Dr. Michael Miller, a cardiologist with ECU’s Brody School of Medicine who performed the catheterization Thursday, said scar tissue had grown inside the stent, impeding the flow of blood to the heart muscle. Miller described the tissue blockage as a common complication of stent procedures, occurring in about 10 to 20 percent of all cases.

To correct the problem, Muse will have a procedure called brachytherapy, in which a radioactive wire, threaded to the heart through the circulatory system, destroys the scar tissue.

The brachytherapy will be performed at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem. PCMH is slated to begin offering the procedure later this year.

Muse, who participated in a telephone conference call meeting of an ECU Board of Trustees committee Thursday morning, praised the work of ECU’s physicians at the Brody School of Medicine and the staff at the Heart Center at PCMH. “They took excellent care of me,” Muse said. “I am feeling well and I expect to be home by Saturday.”