EECP can eliminate angina after angioplasty

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Cardiac patients suffering from acute or severe Angina post complex heart surgeries can now breathe easy.

Enhanced External Counter Pulsation (EECP) treatment can eliminate or relieve Angina that follows immediately after a patient has undergone angioplasty or bypass surgery.

"EECP treatment is a non-invasive outpatient treatment that may relieve or eliminate Angina. The treatment procedure is done outside the body and it does not require surgery or invasive procedures," Dr Ashok Punjabi, consulting cardiologist at Lilavati and Breach Candy hospitals said.

Angina pectoris, as it is known in medical parlance, means 'strangling in the chest'. It is the most common symptom of coronary artery disease where a patient may feel chest pain or pressure, shortness of breathe, pain in the jaw, neck, nausea or generalised fatigue, he said.

"Angina signals that a part of your heart muscle is not receiving enough oxygenated blood. The heart requires an especially enriched supply of oxygen through the incoming blood flow in the coronary arteries. When the vessels that supply the heart with oxygenated blood become narrow, the area of the heart that is not receiving the proper blood flow responds with a very painful signal called Angina Pectoris," Dr Punjabi said.

The EECP machine is like a compressor tied to legs, thighs and lower pelvis. They are a series of blood pressure cuffs that are connected to an inflation device co-ordinated by a computer that monitors the patients heart beat, he added.

The machine contracts and relaxes synchronising with the Electrocardiogram (ECG) and oxygen level of the patients.

"During the active beating of the heart, the cuffs are deflated so the blood pumped by the heart can go down the arteries of the legs. When the heart relaxes, the cuffs rapidly inflate from bottom to top (ankles or pelvis) or "counter" to normal flow and the 'counterpulsation' forces blood back up the arteries and into the heart arteries," the Mumbai-based doctor said.

The standard course of 35-day treatment involves hour-long sittings five days a week, which costs around Rs 70,000.

"When many centres come up with this therapy, the cost will go down and the procedure treatment will also be reduced," Dr Punjabi said.

The idea for this treatment process initiated 50 years back. However, the treatment did not find relevance because the equipments were not effective and it was very cumbersome, the doctor said.

"The equipments are also costly and it requires constant supervision of a cardiologist and a physician," Dr Punjabi said.