A team of Louisiana State university doctors is studying -heart diseases with secondary defects of the blood vessels of ithe lung or the lung itself.
Dr. Jack C. Geer, associate professor of pathology at LSU, said this is one of the challenging sidelights coming from open
heart operations. It is important because the correction of heart defects will do patients no good if the secondary disease has advanced beyond a certain stage," he said.; "In fact, the patient may die shortly after the operation because of the delicate balance between the functioning of the heart has been upset." Reports on Tests Dr. Geer reported on these
tests yesterday during a joint meeting of the College of Ameri-
can Pathologists Gulf Region; and the Louisiana Pathology Society at the LSU medical school.
If heart ailments are corrected surgically, the. secondary
lung defect will often return to
normal on its own — that is if
the lung disease has not advanced beyond a certain point,
Dr. Geer said. The purpose of
this study is to determine exactly-where this point is. Working with Dr. Geer under
a program financed by the National Institute of Health are
Dr. Harold Albert, associate
professor of surgery at LSU,
and Dr. Bertram Glass, an
LSU instructor in surgery.
Discusses Disease Dr. Herbert Ichinose, a Tu-
lane university pathology instructor, discussed leptospirosis
— a disease characterized by
the infection of the liver and
kidneys and the development of
jaundice. Dr. Ichinose said the disease
is mostly commonly carried by
rats and is becoming a clear
danger in Louisiana. He said there have been 36
cases in Louisiana reported to
the U.S. public health service In the past 12 years and 19 have
been fatal.
