no, the item number is mandatory
you would need to concatenate the Decription on the name that is passed to paypal, if you are using eCart 6 and express checkout, look for code similar to this on the confirm page:
$WA_PP_ECO_Do_itemized[0][$nextIndex] = "Name" . strval($cartIndex+1) . "";
$WA_PP_ECO_Do_itemized[1][$nextIndex] = "".$cartName->DisplayInfo("Name") ."";
where cartName is the name of the ecart object
change that to:
$WA_PP_ECO_Do_itemized[0][$nextIndex] = "Name" . strval($cartIndex+1) . "";
$WA_PP_ECO_Do_itemized[1][$nextIndex] = "".$cartName->DisplayInfo("Name") ." ".$cartName->DisplayInfo("Description") ."";