Williams Expected to Make Full Recovery from Heart Surgery
8-Mar-2009
Written by: Laura Prudom

Doctors predict Robin Williams should sail through surgery with no
complications.

According to cardiothoracic surgeons, comedian Robin Williams is expected to
emerge safely from his upcoming heart surgery, ABC News is reporting. Although
Williams has battled drug and alcohol addictions and has a history of heart
failure in his family, doctors predict that the operation to replace the actor's
aortic valve will go smoothly since the procedure is now fairly common, even in
patients as relatively young as Williams.

"In someone who is healthy, despite being in their late 50s, there is a very low
operative risk of failure, death or complications," Dr. Timothy Gardener,
president of the American Heart Association, tells ABC.

Statistics provided by the American Heart Association indicate that surgeons in
the United States performed 17,592 aortic valve procedures in 2007. On average,
patients only spend eight days in the hospital to recuperate after surgery,
suggesting that Williams could feasibly fulfill his commitment to return to his
stand-up tour, "Weapons of Self-Destruction," after recovering from what the
actor is describing as his "little tune-up."