Cardiac patients suffering from acute or severe Angina post complex heart surgeries can now breathe easy.

Enhanced External Counter Pulsation (EECP) treatment can eliminate or relieve Angina that follows immediately after a patient has undergone angioplasty or bypass surgery.

"EECP treatment is a non-invasive outpatient treatment that may relieve or eliminate Angina. The treatment procedure is done outside the body and it does not require surgery or invasive procedures," Dr Ashok Punjabi, consulting cardiologist at Lilavati and Breach Candy hospitals said.

Angina pectoris, as it is known in medical parlance, means 'strangling in the chest'. It is the most common symptom of coronary artery disease where a patient may feel chest pain or pressure, shortness of breathe, pain in the jaw, neck, nausea or generalised fatigue, he said.

"Angina signals that a part of your heart muscle is not receiving enough oxygenated blood. The heart requires an especially enriched supply of oxygen through the incoming blood flow in the coronary arteries. When the vessels that supply the heart with oxygenated blood become narrow, the area of the heart that is not receiving the proper blood flow responds with a very painful signal called Angina Pectoris," Dr Punjabi said.

The EECP machine is like a compressor tied to legs, thighs and lower pelvis. They are a series of blood pressure cuffs that are connected to an inflation device co-ordinated by a computer that monitors the patients heart beat, he added.

The machine contracts and relaxes synchronising with the Electrocardiogram (ECG) and oxygen level of the patients.

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