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Published on Mar 30, 2019
There is a wide disparity in what physicians offer and what patients want to achieve when they are treated for their coronary artery disease ( heart blockages)
Invasive treatment options like bypass surgery and angioplasty are not curative treatment. They are only palliative treatments offered to patients with coronary artery disease.
Bypass Surgery, Angioplasty, and Enhanced External Counterpulsation (EECP) treatment benefits are comparable and among these procedures, EECP is the safest treatment option.
Cardiology is a very complex field and the disease they manage, coronary artery disease is also a complex disease. soitsall boils down to choose a treatment strategy based on the various indications and contraindications. The treatment strategy for coronary artery disease also differs as per the disease condition and its progression. So before going into a comparison of EECP, angioplasty and bypass surgery we need to know what is the expectations of patients and what the physician wants to achieve in the patients.
In the treatment of coronary artery disease what the patient expects and what the physician offer there is a wide disparity. Every patient who was going for an interventional procedure or EECP or simple medical management the patients want to achieve certain things they are.
(I) One, the treatment which is provided to them, they want to make sure the disease is cured.
(II) Second, after the treatment is provided they want to know that their outcome is changed. In the sense, they should be assured that they will not get the heart attack or they will not get rehospitalization because of the same disease.
(III) Three, because they got treated by a very invasive procedure or non-invasive EECP treatment, they expect to continue the same lifestyle and without managing their diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol.
Now, what is the other important factor is what the physician want to or planned to achieve in treating the patients with coronary artery disease. Now any of the treatment strategy they choose the physician knows that patient expectation of curing the disease is not possible, because for coronary artery disease all the treatment strategy provided to you is only palliative treatment. It is not a curative treatment. Once the treatment is completed even with bypass surgery and angioplasty would not offer you or guarantee you to completely eliminate the risk of a recurrent heart attack or recurrent hospitalization or the requirement of further interventional procedure like bypass and angioplasty again. Even after the treatment is completed the patients are expected to continue the same medical management same control over their blood sugar level, cholesterol, and blood pressure.
Now the question raise is how do you compare all these existing proven treatment strategies? What EECP treatment offers to you is improving the blood supply to heart muscle similar to what bypass surgery and angioplasty can offer to you. So all these treatment strategies are the same. They focus on improving the blood supply to heart muscle. So definitely EECP can able to improve the blood supply and also compared to bypass surgery and angioplasty the improvement in quality life and improvement in angina are all very similar in all the three treatment strategies. It is very important because in a long time after 5 years of the treatment either bypass surgery or angioplasty or EECP, they attain the same quality of life improvement and they have the same outcome. So by taking EECP, you are not losing any advantage what the bypass surgery or angioplasty can give in fact you are taking the benefits similar to bypass surgery and angioplasty without going through all the risk which angioplasty and bypass surgery offer to you.
EECP THERAPY uses a proprietary technology to inflate and deflate a series of pneumatic cuffs enclosing the lower extremities of the patients. Treatment is administered on a padded table in which three sets of electronically controlled inflation and deflation valves are located.
