Cheney undergoes minor heart surgery

US Vice President Dick Cheney had minor surgery today to receive a new battery for an implanted device that monitors his heart rhythms.

“The device was successfully replaced without complication,” said Megan McGinn, the vice president’s deputy press secretary.

Cheney, who has a history of heart problems, arrived with his wife, Lynne, in the morning for the procedure at George Washington University Hospital, in Washington, and walked out about four hours later. He smiled and waved at photographers as he left.

Cheney returned to his home at the Naval Observatory and then resumed his normal schedule, McGinn said.

Doctors replaced the generator and battery part of the heart defibrillator. That device monitors Cheney’s heart and would deliver an electric shock to reset the heart to normal if the heart ever went out of rhythm.

Doctors did not replace wires that are attached to the device and are threaded through Cheney’s heart. That would have required a much more extensive operation.

Cheney, 66, has had four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, two artery-clearing angioplasties and an operation to implant the defibrillator.

During Cheney’s annual physical last month, doctors tested his implanted cardioverter-defibrillator and learned that the battery powering the device had reached a level where replacement is recommended.