ECP: The New, Old Method For Bypassing Coronary Bypass

A few years ago, my American friend Robert had a heart attack. Ten days later, he had another heart attack. Three weeks later, he had a third heart attack.

Having access to the best of US high-tech medicine, Robert was finally wheeled in (after cardiovascular episode number four) for a stent procedure. He was sedated, but awake. The surgeon asked for a bare-metal stent, which could be best explained as "the cheap kind," not a drug-eluting stent. The chief surgical nurse was surprised and asked for confirmation. "The patient is financially challenged," the doctor said.

The stent procedure did not really work, and Robert had multiple blockages. He was in the hospital ten times, and had to have yet anoth"cer stent procedure. After this third surgery, Robert saw his dead mother and his dead father and various friendly spirits come into his room just before the EKG monitor went flat. He died. The "cheap stent" had collected blood clots. After 12 minutes of epinephrine, atropine, and CPR, Robert woke up just as another doctor was saying "360. No detectible pulse." Then this new doctor apologized, "No time to give you anesthetic" and opened an artery to put in yet another stent, another of the cheap stents, it turned out.

Two years and 33 hospitalizations later, Robert was told that the stent inside the stent inside the stent in that particular artery was again failing. Robert demanded no more. By that time, however, Robert did not really have a choice. The other surgeons had left no place for a coronary graft, a bypass, to be placed on the sick artery. Fortunately, it turned out there was (and always was) a non-surgical way to treat him, external counterpulsation, or ECP.

What Is ECP?

What Is It Like To Get ECP?