A medical team here has successfully carried out a surgical procedure for a 17-year-old man suffering from pectus excavatum, a chest wall birth deformity in which the chest is sunken. The operation performed at Al-Noor Specialist Hospital of King Abdullah Medical City here, based on the Nuss technique, was the first of its kind in the Makkah Province's hospital. Chest surgery consultant Dr. Salem Al-Amri said the man came to the hospital suffering from severe pain in the chest and breathing difficulties. “The Nuss technique reduces after-surgery pain and recovery.” The procedure is named after Pediatric surgeon Dr. Donald Nuss, a South African, who was a pioneer in the treatment of pectus excavatum. He developed the procedure in 1987 at the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Virginia in the United States. He invented the procedure by inserting a slim, curved steel bar through two tiny incisions in the patient's side chest walls, correcting bone alignment without extensive cutting or bone removal. His groundbreaking work has since earned him recognition from top surgeons, according to the hospital's website. The operation takes about 45 minutes. Recovery time includes between four to five days in the hospital. Patients younger than fifteen often require only two to four weeks at home after being discharged from the hospital for recovery, but older children and adults typically require a much longer recovery period due to the decreased flexibility of their bones.
