Virginia Commonwealth University President Eugene P. Trani is expected to be released from VCU Medical Center this week after undergoing quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery.

Doctors said the surgery Saturday was a success, according to VCU spokeswoman Pamela D. Lepley.

Trani, 68, started feeling chest pains late last week while in his office on VCU's Monroe Park campus, Lepley said.

He went to the medical center, where on Friday he had a stress test and cardiac catheterization, a procedure in which a thin, flexible tube is threaded through blood vessels and into heart arteries to look for blockage. Those tests indicated the need for the surgery.

Trani dictated a message that was sent by e-mail to the university community yesterday.

"The surgery went very well, and I have already been in touch with my office," Trani said in the note. "All of this came as a complete surprise, and I feel very fortunate to have been back at VCU, and to be in the excellent care of our Medical Center."

VCU cardiothoracic surgeon Szabolcs Szentpetery, a professor of surgery and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, performed the surgery.

Lepley said Trani did not have a heart attack, and she was not aware of any history of heart problems.

In bypass surgery, doctors take a length of blood vessel from elsewhere in the body, usually the leg, cut it into sections, and then sew those sections to heart arteries to detour or bypass blood flow around the areas of blockage. Quintuple bypass would be done to route blood flow around five blockages.

Typically in the surgery, an incision is made in the chest, and the breastbone is opened to get access to the heart.

The surgery usually takes four to six hours. Bypass patients typically need six to eight weeks to recuperate.

"Dr. Trani is doing as well as can be expected after his cardiac surgery. We expect a full recovery," said Dr. Sheldon Retchin, VCU Health System's chief executive officer.

About 600,000 coronary artery bypass surgeries are done annually in the United States. According to the American Heart Association, the surgery reduces the risk of heart attack, relieves chest pain and improves a person's ability to exercise. More than 250 heart-bypass operations were performed last year at VCU.

Trani was scheduled to be on a two-month sabbatical at Harvard University's Taubman Center for State and Local Government through mid-August. In his note to the university community, he said he returned to Richmond after his first month because the university was "experiencing a number of recent challenges."

Recent controversies have brought VCU some unwelcome attention. The university launched an investigation after an anonymous e-mail claimed that then-Richmond Police Chief Rodney D. Monroe did not take enough classes at VCU to earn the degree he was awarded by VCU last year.

University policy requires 25 percent of course work to be taken at VCU, but Monroe, who has since become police chief in Charlotte, N.C., only took two courses there.

In the other controversy, there have been questions about whether a research agreement with Philip Morris USA was in accordance with traditional accepted research guidelines and policy.

VCU officials said Friday that employees have been disciplined in the Monroe case and that an administrative review is ongoing. A university Task Force on Corporate Sponsored Research will hold a town-hall meeting tomorrow to hear from faculty and students on the research issue.

Trani, appointed president July 1, 1990, has presided over VCU as it has grown to become one of the largest universities in the state.