If your sunken chest is making life hard for you, you may seek the Nuss Procedure in India to get the deformity corrected and start living normal again. Introduced by Dr. Donald Nuss for treating pectus excavatum, the Nuss procedure can change the life of anyone beleaguered with a sunken chest.

The sunken chest or funnel chest is caused by the abnormal growth of some ribs and sternum and the problem varies from mild to severe. While the mild cases can be improved with exercise and better posture, the severe ones need surgical correction.

Eligibility for Nuss Procedure

• Severely sunken chest that causes pain and breathing problems to an individual
• Deformity causing compression and displacement of the heart
• Shortness of breath and intolerance of physical exertion
• Younger patients, in their preadolescent age, are considered better candidates as their bones and cartilages are relatively flexible.

How is it performed?

Before you head to India for pectus excavatum treatment, you must know what the surgery entails.

Two small incisions are made in the chest, a concave steel rod is inserted under the sternum, and a thoracoscope is inserted through a third incision to help guide the actions inside the thoracic cavity. The steel bar is then rotated to pop the sternum out and held in place with a device called the stabilizer.

Multiple bars may be required in patients who are taller. The patient is allowed to go home within a week and the sutures usually get dissolved within a few months.

Depending upon the tissue behavior in different cases, the bar may be removed after an year or two years.

Cost of Nuss Procedure in India

The Nuss Procedure is a major surgery that requires the expertise of several doctors and involves a lot of expenses. However, by traveling to India for your Nuss procedure, you could end up saving upto 70 percent of the treatment cost.

Nuss Procedure in India – Surgeon Interview

Following is the video narration of a pectus expert in India:

“Basic education from Bhopal, MBBS. Post graduation and residency from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and a fellowship in thoracic surgery from Korea University medical centre in Seoul. During this period I have mastered one technique, that’s the pectus excavatum surgery.

“After my education I worked at a few places in India, that’s in Shillong, it’s in the eastern part of India. I was working there as a professor in surgery and after that I had again gone out for my fellowship in South Korea. So I was there working in Korea University of Medical Centre.

“Regarding the procedures and thoracic surgery, our emphasis has been mainly on minimal access procedure, that’s what you call as thoracoscopy. We do assisted thoracic surgery. So basically we are dealing with all cases of thoracic diseases, there is bone benign and malignant excluding the heart. Our focus is on lung surgery using the minimal access technique, then other conditions of chest wall that’s very importantly I would say ‘pectus excavatum surgery’ which I think not many centers are doing in the world. There are few selected centers.

“In the Pectus excavatum we are doing the minimal access technique which is a modified nuss procedure so this technique we are able to correct defects which are both symmetrical and difficult one that is called asymmetrical defects, which is a complex thing. So we offer these to both – the pediatric group as well as the teenager group and also in selected cases for the adult patients. This is a technique which has evolved over time and we are using the least invasive and a very safe procedure which is a modified technique using endoscopy.

“Doing my mentorship that time, there were many patients from the US side, Canada, China, from Japan and of course a lot from south East Asia because they were not able to find much centers in their own places who could give a very good results, because not everybody’s practicing this minimal access technique. We have the hole technique that sort of each technique which is open surgery, that is more commercial, more morbid. So most of the patients who had pediatric age group. It’s basically 50-50, pediatric age groups and teenager groups.

“The teenagers were mainly who were ……….in early stages and once they have reached the age of teenage, they realize that they have got some defects because it is the defects, it’s not just cosmetic, its physiological as well as psychological. There are three things we have….. – Cosmetic, physiologically it restricts the function of the lungs; psychologically the impact is on the person. He is shy, he doesn’t mingle up, he has got a complex in him. It’s basically a disease which has got three components, again I would say – cosmetic is differently what you all think about but there are two other aspects. One is physiological and psychological part.”

Risks associated with Nuss Procedure?

• The most known complication is air in chest, medically known as pneumothorax.  No special treatment is required for this condition; deep, aggressive breathing usually helps.
• Care should be taken to prevent dislocation of bar.  Any form of strenuous work should be avoided for a month or as suggested by the surgeon.
• Surgery related risks like infection and bleeding are always there. It is important to get yourself treated at a place where sterilization standards are strict and patient-care is not compromised.

Pectus Excavatum can prevent any individual from leading a normal life, but you do not have to put up with the menace any more. By opting for Nuss procedure in India, you can rid yourself of this problematic deformity of the chest forever.

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