Reagan Will Have Polyp in Colon Excised

WASHINGTON â€”  President Reagan will enter Bethesda Naval Hospital on Friday to have a benign growth removed from his colon and undergo a thorough examination of his large intestine, the White House announced today.

Spokesman Larry Speakes said the 74-year-old Reagan will remain overnight at the military hospital just outside Washington and travel to Camp David, Md., on Saturday to spend a restful weekend at the presidential retreat.

Reagan will be given a painkiller and sedative before the polypectomy, the removal of the growth, and the colonoscopy, the visual inspection of the colon. But he is not expected to need a general anesthetic.

No Transfer of Power

“The President will be able to discharge his duties� throughout his stay at the hospital and no temporary transfer of power to Vice President George Bush is planned, Speakes said.

The procedures are to be performed by Dr. Edward L. Cattau, a Navy commander who serves as chief of gastroenterology at the hospital.

The polyp that doctors plan to remove is a fleshy growth on the inside wall of the colon that was discovered during Reagan’s physical examination in March.

A similar small polyp was found a year earlier, and part of it was removed for microscopic examination, which showed the growth was benign, or noncancerous, Speakes said at the time.

First Polyp Gone

When doctors re-examined Reagan in March, they found no evidence of the first polyp and concluded most of it had been removed during the biopsy and apparently had healed without further treatment.

The growths are fairly common among people over 50, and they occur with increasing frequency as people get older. The vast majority of such growths, particularly small ones like Reagan’s, are benign and rarely cause discomfort or illness.

Speakes said doctors described the growth they plan to remove from Reagan’s intestine as a “small inflammatory pseudo-polyp,� which is not known to grow into colon cancer.

But specialists in the field say the discovery of one polyp indicates there may be others. And the danger is that some polyps--doctors cannot predict which ones--develop into colon cancer, the second most common form of cancer in humans and a killer of 60,000 Americans each year.

Others Would Be Removed

Speakes said that if more polyps are discovered during the examination, they will probably be removed at that time.

Reagan is to be examined with a colonoscope, a long, flexible tube that uses modern fiber optics technology to enable a physician to look at a magnified image of the patient’s colon while guiding the instrument by remote control through the winding digestive tract.

When a polyp is found, the operator can use a tiny wire snare at the end of the instrument to lasso the growth and clip it off, sealing the wound with a coagulating electrical current that runs through the wire.