The Scoop: Yeltsin's Doctors Get U.S. Assist

THE KREMLIN: 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 less risky than a conventional angiogram, and which 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.