A London cardiologist warned doctors here Wednesday to be on the lookout for an insidious type of pulmonary embolism.
Dr. John F. Goodwin said there are few warning signals. He said the disease may start with a series of tiny clots settling in the small arteries. Collectively, he added, these little clots can cause real trouble.
"We have no ideas what causes these emboli to develop," he explained.
Dr. Goodwin, who was the leadoff speaker at the one-day convention of the Louisiana Heart Association in the Roosevelt Hotel, said the type of embolism associated with phlebitis is more easily detected.
"It is also more dramatic," he added. "In this type a person may get a clot of blood in his legs, a phlebitis. This clot sometimes becomes dislodged, travels along the vein until it reaches the right side of the heart, then gets passed into the arteries of the lungs."
Dr. Goodwin, who is chief | -cardiologist for London's Ham-! mersmith Hospital, said many types of phlebitis are of course superficial. He said they are near the surface of the veins and do not tend to get dislodged.
"Phlebitis is fairly common," he said, "but the pulmonary embolism to which it leads is less common."
Dr. Goodwin said if diagnosed early the disease can usually be effectively treated. Methods of
suen anticoagulants are very few provided they are used under properly controlled conditions," the physician added.
Dr. Goodwin said pulmonary embolism can kill if not detected in time. He said it can cause Failure of the right side of the heart when this side of the heart is forced to work too hard to pump blood into a clogged lung.
The visiting cardiologist said many people have clots in their lungs but that these clots dissi-
pate naturally without serious consequences.
"Perhaps there is a deficiency in the enzymes or metabolism system of people whose bodies do not get rid of these clots in a natural way," the physician added.
Dr. Goodwin, who is also professor of clinical cardiology at the Postgraduate Medical School of the University of London, was followed to the speaker's platform by a group of New Orleans cardiologists and heart research scientists.
Delegates to the scientific
session were welcomed by Dr. Page W. Acree, Baton Rouge, president of the Louisiana Heart? Association.
Other speakers, all from New Orleans, included Drs. Lottie B. McWherter, Hans Weill, Morton Ziskind, Louis Levy IIt Maurice A. Pearl, Brian H. McCracken, Robert Westfall, Martin Rappa-port, Charles Pearce, Oscar Creech, Richard E. Fowler, Harold M/Albert, Stanley Shelby, Warren Coleman and Gerald S. Berenson. PHOTO: Participants in Heart Association Session - TAKING active part in the annual meeting of the Louisiana Heart Association Wednesday at the Roosevelt Hotel were (from left), Dr. Allan M..Goldman, past president of the association and general chairman of the 13th annual convention of the American College of Cardiology which opens Thursday; Dr. Harold M. Albert, heart surgeon at the Louisiana State University Medical School; Dr. Page W. Aoree, Baton Rouge, president of the Louisiana Heart Association, and . Dr. Richard E. Fowler, member of the staff of He Tulane Medical School, past president of the association.
