IMPORTANT STATEMENT:

EVOLUTION of ECP TREATMENT and
ECP SYSTEMS MARKETED in TURKEY

In 1960’s, some attempts were made in USA in order to support blood circulation, improve cardiac function and increase coronary blood flow, through the external application of pressure to the lower part of the body. But, in the systems developed at that time, were not found convenient for clinical use.

ECP systems used world wide nowadays, have been developed by Professor Zhensheng Zheng at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. In these systems, pressure is applied to the lower parts of the body through the three pairs of cuffs wrapped around the calfscalves, thighs and buttocks which are inflated by pressurized air at the beginning of diastole, sequentially starting from the most distal ones, and are deflated all together at the beginning of systole. This application is very easy, highly effective and convenient for rutine clinical use.

Prof. Zheng initially developed the first generation External Counterpulsation (ECP) System of “Sequential External Counterpulsation” (SECP) in 1976 and then the second generation system of “Enhanced External Counterpulsation” (EECP) in 1980. He firstly published the beneficial results obtained in his clinical applications in 1983. Since then, External Counterpulsation Therapy has been widely used in China, especially in heart and brain diseases of vascular origin.

Prof. Zheng was invited to State University of New York at Stony Brook by Prof. Soroff and Dr. Hui in 1988, as a Visiting Professor, an EECP Lab. was set up with EECP machines produced in China and he worked there together with his American Colleagues till 1991. After the observation of convincing beneficial results of EECP therapy in this center, even in end stage coronary artery disease patients with angina and without any chance of treatment with other modalities, a firm in the USA made an agreement with the company producing EECP systems in China in 1993. According to this agreement, EECP systems were manufactured by that company in China and distributed by this American company in the USA and all over the world. All the clinical studies which proved the efficiency of EECP therapy were made by these EECP systems. In 2004, the American company established his own EECP factory in New York, started to produce new EECP systems and ended the agreement with the Chinese company.

Nowadays, many new companies in China produce ECP systems. Among those, one which  implies new technological developments and receives internationally recognized reliability certificates is marketed in many countries in the World and also in Turkey by its representative company.

ECP therapy is an easily applied, low-cost, safe, non-invasive, highly effective outpatient treatment modality, which can be used not only in the treatment but also in the prevention of patients with cardiovascular disease. As there are about 3 million people with coronary artery disease and more then that with high risks in Turkey, quite a high number of subjects could be benefited from this effective treatment. In addition, ECP therapy can even be applied in private office conditions, and therefore, it gives a chance to non-invasive cardiologist to offer an safe and effective treatment to their patients in their office, besides prescribing drug therapy.

For these reasons, I strongly feel, we should be grateful to Professor Zheng for developing such a highly effective treatment modality and offering it to the benefit of human kind, to all the investigators all over the World, mostly in China and the USA, for their valuable research studies demonstrating the effectiveness of ECP, to all the companies in the world that produce and market the ECP systems and support the research studies, and also, to all the companies that import the ECP systems to Turkey and provide the opportunity for our people to benefit from it.

Prof. Dr. Günsel Şurdum Avcı

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
According to Turkish laws, none of the health related instruments can be imported to the country without CE certificate. On arrival of every single instrument at the Turkish customs, the documents are inspected carefully and import permission is given after confirmation of compliance to Turkish Standards.