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Enhanced External Counter-Pulsation (EECP)

Enhanced external counter pulsation (EECP), a method adopted widely in western countries as a mode of treatment for heart failure, should be classified as an 'anti-ageing' treatment, according to K. Meer Mustafa Hussain, Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University. He was speaking at the inauguration of the Indian Patient EECP Registry here on Saturday. The registry is an effort of Frontier Lifeline Hospital, whose chairman KM. Cherian, was also present. The registry will have 30 centres that provide the treatment across the country and would share data with the international registry in Pittsburgh University, Pennsylvania, U.S. Dr. Hussain suggested that the Government support the programme for the benefit of poor patients. He called for efforts to improve awareness of the procedure among the patients and the medical community. Doctors should carefully select Indian patients keeping in mind their financial, physical and physiological needs. Lifestyle modifications and yoga played an important role in preventing heart diseases, he pointed out. A non-invasive outpatient procedure today, EECP was developed in Harvard University in the 1950s but it was in the 1980s that a Chinese group reported a largescale use of this technique, he said. The procedure is not a replacement for bypass or angioplasty, but helped patients who could undergo elaborate heart surgeries. Frontier Lifeline Hospital will be the centralised chief coordinating centre for the registry that is to be funded by Vasco-Meditech. The registry is expected to provide a valuable database for cardiologists to decide on the mode of treatment. The registry will also conduct national multi-centric studies to observe arterial stiffness pattern in the Indian population, thus giving insight into the incidence of premature coronary artery disease in the younger age group. At the conference, a discussion on introducing costs-effective signal telemedicine device in rural areas was also held. Pradeep Nayar, chief coordinator for the Indian registry, said the EECP concept had been around for 50 years. But it gained importance only in the early part of this decade, he added. K Meer Mustafa Hussain
Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University