Who invented EECP?

Where does the idea come from?

In 1953 Adrian and Arthur Kantrowitz showed in animal experiments: if the pressure wave in the aorta is delayed, more blood flows into the coronary arteries. This principle is called counterpulsation.

Who built the first device?

In the 1960s Birtwell, Soroff and their colleagues at Harvard University developed the first device that applies pressure to the legs from outside. It worked with water and was cumbersome to operate. The same idea gave rise to the intra-aortic balloon pump, still used in cardiac centres today.

How did the form used today come about?

From 1976 Zheng Zhensheng and his team at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou developed the method further: three air cuffs on the calves, thighs and buttocks, pumping in sequence in time with the heart. In the 1980s this became the enhanced form, EECP.

When did EECP reach the clinics?

1. 1990sThe name EECP is coined in the USA, first centres at university hospitals.
2. 1995FDA approval for chronic angina pectoris.
3. 1999MUST-EECP, the first randomised study at seven university hospitals.
4. 2002FDA approval for heart failure.
5. 2024Named in the guideline of the European Society of Cardiology.

And in Berlin?

Dr. Holger Hotz has offered EECP therapy in Berlin since 2013.

Sources

Kantrowitz A, Kantrowitz A. Experimental augmentation of coronary flow by retardation of the arterial pressure pulse. Surgery. 1953;34(4):678–687.

Soroff HS, Birtwell WC et al. Assisted circulation by external counterpulsation. Early work of the Harvard group, 1960s.

Zheng ZS et al. Sequential external counterpulsation (SECP) in China. Trans Am Soc Artif Intern Organs. 1983;29:599–603.

Arora RR et al. MUST-EECP. J Am Coll Cardiol. 1999;33(7):1833–1840.