Clinical Trials demonstrate that approximately 80% of angina patients experience significant symptom relief after EECP that may last over three years. Some patients become free of angina of symptoms.

It can still be effective at reducing symptoms even when other treatment options like balloon angioplasty, stent insertion

and bypass surgery have been tried, are not amenable or offer too high a risk to the patient.

If you  have angina you may wish rank your symptoms against the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Classification  and see how much functional improvement was gained after EECP in the International EECP Patient Registry of over 5,000 people.

CCS Functional Classification of Angina

Data gathered by the International EECP Patient Registry of over 5,000 patients showed:

• after 24 months follow up 31% of patients recorded being angina free compared to 0% at the start of the study.
• 82% of patients improved after EECP by one or more CCS class
• 43.9% of patients improved after EECP by two or more CCS classes
• Benefits were sustained over the 24 month follow up

3 Year Follow Up

A recent study of one thousand four hundred and twenty seven patients from 36 centers demonstrated that immediately post-EECP, the proportion of patients with severe angina (Canadian Cardiovascular Angina Classification [CCS] III/IV) were reduced from 89% to 25%, p<0.001. The CCS class was improved by at least 1 class in 78% of the patients and by at least 2 classes in 38%. This was sustained in 74% of the patients during 3 year follow-up.

Poay Huan Loh, John G.F. Cleland et al Clin. Cardiol. 31, 4, 159–164 (2008)

If you would like some further information on this, please contact Dr Richard Fuller

Alternately please see Clinical Data  for a more detailed table of the CCS functional classification and for a summary of the many published studies from peer reviewed medical journals.

How effective  is EECP?