ORLANDO-Cuffs on the legs seem to be able to ease pain in the heart.
Enhanced external counterpulsation, the outpatient angina therapy that inflates pressure cuffs around patients’ calves and thighs during diastole, proved safe and effective in multicenter double-blind trials with 84 coronary-disease patients.
In a sham-control study of 35 sessions over four to seven weeks, the real thing increased exercise duration and time to onset of ST depression, says Dr. Rohit Arora, director of the CCU at Columbia-Presbyterian in New York. It also decreased weekly anginal episodes and nitroglycerine use.
Controls increased exercise duration, but not time to ischemia, Dr. Arora told the American Heart Association meeting here. Previous studies have shown that treatment effects can last for at least three years, perhaps by stimulating collateral growth.
