Effect of Enhanced External Counterpulsation and Cardiac Rehabilitation on Quality of Life, Plasma Nitric Oxide, Endothelin 1 and High Sensitive CRP in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease: A Pilot Study.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effect of enhanced external counterpulsation (EECP) on plasma nitric oxide (NO), Endothelin 1 (ET1), high sensitive C-reactive protein (HSCRP) and quality of life (QoL) in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).


METHODS
We conducted a pilot randomized clinical trial in order to evaluate plasma NO, ET1, HSCRP and QoL before and after twenty sessions of EECP (group A) and cardiac rehabilitation (CR, group B) in 42 patients with CAD (21 in each group).


RESULTS
Forty-two patients (33 male and 9 female) were included in the study. The mean age was 58.2±10 years. The mean HSCRP was 1.52±0.7 in the EECP group and it was reduced to 1.27±0.4 after intervention. The reduction in HSCRP was not statistically significant in EECP and CR groups with p=0.33 and p=0.27, respectively. There was not significant improvement of NO, ET1, and QoL in the EECP and CR groups shortly after therapy (p>0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Although the short-term EECP treatment in CAD patients improved HSCRP, NO, ET1, and QoL compared with the baseline those improvements are not statistically significant. Further studies are necessary with large study groups and more sessions.
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Seyed Kazem
SK
Shakouri
Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Zeynab
Z
Razavi
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Fariba
F
Eslamian
Injury Epidemiology & Prevention Research Center, Statistics and Epidemiology Department, School of Health & Nutrition, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Homayoun
H
Sadeghi-Bazargani
Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Samad
S
Ghaffari
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Arash
A
Babaei-Ghazani
Coronary artery disease; Endothelins; Enhanced external counter pulsation (EECP); High-sensitivity C-reactive protein; Nitric oxide