Background: Enhanced External Counter Pulsation (EECP) is a non-invasive US FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration) approved outpatient treatment option for the complex problem of angina, a common symptom of coronary heart disease. A systematic review of the literature was done to assess the effect of EECP on the clinical profile that comprised physiological measurements, biochemical assessments, cardiac clinical symptoms, physical functional status, and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) patients. Material and Methods: Total 258 EECP research articles from the early stage of EECP development till date were screened. Out of 258 EECP articles, total 60 articles (53 EECP articles for clinical profile and 7 articles for HRQoL matched the inclusion criteria and other (n=198) articles were excluded due to irrelevance to study objectives. Results: All enrolled studies showed a significant improvement in angina pectoris and HRQoL with reduction of nitroglycerine use and exercise tolerance. Several gaps in research have been found for further research to evaluate the EECP effectiveness on Body Mass Index (BMI), Heart Rate, Cholesterol, Triglyceride, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), HbA1C, SpO2, Vo2max levels with a comparative assessment of cardiac and non-cardiac metabolic markers including blood glucose. Conclusions: There is further need of multi-centric randomized controlled trial studies to evaluate the effect of EECP on obese, diabetic, hypertensive and other metabolic disease patients and more research is required for further modifications in EECP equipment to treat chronic diseases by the non-invasive procedures.
