Pectus Up operation for Pectus excavatum

[EnglishRosey]

Hello,

has anyone (or their child) had the Pectus Up procedure for their Pectus excavatum?

It is a fairly new procedure. The most common procedure is the Nuss but I’m very interested in finding out about the Pectus up, which is less invasive and has a faster recovery period. It is not FDA approved yet (but under consideration), originated in Spain and growing in terms of procedure of choice.

my DC has PE, and I’m looking into all options.

any advice would be appreciated.

I guess I am asking AIBU to consider the Pectus Up procedure over the Nuss?

Thank you

Interesting. I hadn't heard of this one. Is it really much less invasive than the Nuss procedure, though?

The NHS would not do any surgery on my DS, even though his PE is severe, so I'm not sure they would fund this technique either. According to them it is purely a cosmetic problem...

We have just started vacuum bell treatment - we are only a few weeks in, so it's too early to tell how effective it will be.

We didn’t have much success with the vacuum bell. But that could’ve been non compliance as my DC found it annoying.

the Pectus Up is most definitely less invasive as it is on top of the breast bone and not near organs, and recovery in 5 days rather than 6 months. But the metal stays inside for the same length of time as the Nuss (eg 2-3 years, sometimes 5 years).

We are in Europe so not affected about NHS funding. However, something you may be interested to hear is that since April this year, the Nuss is back to being funded by NHS England for severe cases (was always funded by Wales and Scotland I believe). Good
luck!

Ah, OK. I will have to do some more research about it!

DS is fairly used to all kinds of medical nonsense, though, so I am hoping he will give the vacuum bell a good go.

We were seen in Feb this year, so maybe the NHS funding guidance has changed since then - typical! But tbh the consultant said even if it was doable under the NHS, he really wouldn't recommend Nuss due to all the risks. So on those grounds I would say definitely talk to your soctor/consultant about Pectus Up. Good luck!

Thanks. It’s our consultant that recommended the Pectus up. So I was trying to find some people that have had it done.

i googled and came up with this https://www.ctsnet.org/article/first-minimally-invasive-pectus-intervention-pectus-excavatum-uk-and-ireland

Big Hugs

Hi @EnglishRosey

Have you made any decisions yet? I just thought I would come back to the thread and tell you about a conversation I had today with our consultant.

At the end of the appointment I asked if he was aware of the Pectus Up procedure and what he thought of it.

He said it has been around for a while, and that it sometimes rings alarm bells with surgeons when a procedure isn't widely performed or doesn't seem to have great results being reported.

But, then he said that recently it seems like surgeons in Spain have changed either their technique, or maybe the hardware they use (can't remember exactly what he said) and that they were now getting some really good results.

So much so, that he is going out to Spain soon to have a look, and is planning to perform the procedure himself later this year.

So he seems to think it is worth a look, and did say that it is much less invasive than the Nuss.