PRIMATE GETS HIGH-TECH CHECK : CARDIOVASCULAR PROBLEMS IN APES CONCERN ZOO HEALTH SPECIALISTS.Byline: Associated Press Everything about the high-tech cardiovascular exam was standard - except for the patient. It took a dart to anesthetize an·es  the·ti·za tion (-t -z him. It took six people to carry his 370-pound hairy frame into the operating room. And while the electrocardiogram scalar electrocardiogram see electrocardiogram. e·lec·tro·car·di·o·gram ( -l ktr was in process, it took two doctors to clean his teeth. The cardiovascular exam on Gus the gorilla Gorilla A company that dominates an industry without having a complete monopoly.Notes: This term is a reference to the old jokes about the 800-pound gorillas, who "do whatever they want." For example, you'll hear people say "Microsoft is an 800-pound gorilla." See also: Dove, Economic Moat, Elephants, Hawk, Monopoly is part of an ongoing effort by the National Zoo to improve the health and longevity of these primates. The procedure, funded by the zoo, has been done before on nine orangutans orangutan (ōrăng` tăn), an ape, Pongo pygmaeus, found in swampy coastal forests of Borneo and Sumatra. Highly specialized for arboreal life, it usually travels by grasping branches with hands and feet and moving from tree to tree. and four other gorillas - two of them males - since September. Dr. Richard Cambre, head of the department of animal health at the zoo, said the examination was important because gorillas, especially males, have a relatively high incidence of cardiovascular disease. Some have even died, one as recently as two months ago in Seattle. ``It's a serious problem because there aren't that many male gorillas in captivity,'' said Cambre. ``We can't have them dying of diseases we potentially could do something about.'' The procedure began at 7:45 a.m. Saturday, when 15-year-old Gus was immobilized by a dart at the Zoo's Great Ape House. Fifteen minutes later, he was brought into the veterinary hospital and carried into the operating room on a special stretcher. A medical team of nine - all of them masked and dressed in green robes - hooked Gus up onto monitors with green, blue and orange bands and inserted a tube into his windpipe windpipe /wind·pipe/ (wind´pip) the trachea. wind·pipe (w ndp to help him breathe an anesthetic, the same type used in human operating rooms. Then, with the beeping sound of Gus' heart echoing through the room, the team took his blood pressure - it was normal - monitored his breathing and his heart rate and then began the ultrasound procedure. As the monitor showed the fuzzy image of Gus' heart pumping blood, Dr. Steven Goldstein, a cardiologist who did the electrocardiogram, noticed that although the gorilla's aortas were normal, his left ventricle left ventricle n. was not squeezing out as much blood as it should. The chamber on the left side of the heart that receives the arterial blood from the left atrium and contracts to force it into the aorta. Goldstein said that he had detected the same abnormality in one of the two other male gorillas. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: A medical team examines a 15-year-old gorilla at the National Zoo. Associated Press |
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