The Kremlin

By Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles

On Dec. 19, Moscow reported that Boris Yeltsin was undergoing a normal follow-up to his 1996 heart-bypass surgery. In fact, he underwent a sophisticated new heart scan called a C.T.-angiography, a painless, noninvasive test that is less risky than a conventional angiogram and that can be performed only with a scanner created by Imatron, a San Francisco-based company. Radiologists at the Moscow Cardiology Center had just begun learning to use the machine when Imatron began getting E-mails from them: they wanted to use the scanner--which can tell if a bypass graft has closed up--on Yeltsin. Imatron stepped up the tutorial; now doctors say he is in the pink.

--By Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles