TRINIDAD – A car­di­ol­o­gist con­sul­tant says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is like­ly go­ing to Cal­i­for­nia to take im­por­tant tests to de­ter­mine whether he will need heart surgery. The tests will de­ter­mine whether Row­ley will need in­va­sive surgery or be pre­scribed some­thing as sim­ple as a dosage of med­ica­tion like as­pirin.

The di­ag­no­sis will de­ter­mine the lev­el of plaque build-up in his coro­nary artery – mild 30%, mod­er­ate 31%-69%, se­vere– 70% and over. On Sun­day, Row­ley an­nounced he will leave for Cal­i­for­nia, Unit­ed States where he will un­der­go a se­ries of coro­nary tests and ob­ser­va­tion. Row­ley said in 2016 he sub­ject­ed him­self to a coro­nary test which re­vealed a soft plaque in one of the ar­ter­ies, but a sub­se­quent test in 2017 showed it had grown quite sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The car­di­ol­o­gist con­sul­tant, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause of the in­di­vid­ual in­volved, said doc­tors in Cal­i­for­nia will seek to de­ter­mine whether Row­ley is at risk of a heart at­tack. The tests, the con­sul­tant says, will show what state the plaque is in as they will have “dif­fer­ent prop­er­ties.” He likens the buildup of plaque to ce­ment. (Trinidad Guardian)…[+]