The Nuss Procedure and Dr. Donald Nuss

People generally search for rib flare or the nuss procedure after they've understood more about pectus excavatum, but many are unaware about who invented the Nuss Procedure.

Image of Dr. Donald Nuss

The Nuss Procedure was invented by Donald Nuss in 1986 as a more efficient and non-invasive surgery, essentially replacing the Ravitch Procedure and its modifications, which dominated the field for pectus excavatum surgeries. The Ravitch Procedure required the removal of skin and some muscles of the chest to access the rib cage cartilage (the Ravitch Procedure is actually a modification of the first Pectus Excavatum surgery committed by Ferdinand Sauerbruch). The biggest revolutionary act were small incisions on the rib cage to allow a metal bar to be inserted and turned 180 degrees to press the chest further (which was suggested in earlier attempts and in modifications of the Ravitch Procedure), thus not needing to further damage the chest in order to complete the surgery.

German Surgeon | Ferdinand Sauerbruch

The Nuss Procedure was a major modification, but influenced by earlier surgeons who also believed that cutting too much muscle or cartilage was inefficient. Some earlier surgeons committed the surgery on very young children, but later on, years before the Nuss Procedure was developed by Nuss, surgeons overwhelmingly agreed to wait for surgery until after puberty.

Blog Site Refresh

I've been using a regular template from Blogger, with tiny adjustments, but I felt like the blog needed a refresh (after checking out other blogs about rib flare and pectus excavatum). I felt like it needed to be reworked, because well, at first it looked nice in my mind, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I did. I wanted to make the site more visually pleasing for people who use laptops, or hand-held devices (without using a mobile version of the site). I got rid of the single sidebar on each side (where the main content was in the middle, and decided to use one sidebar on the left side of the page for easy navigation, before it looked quite cluttered. I've resized my blog to make it smaller, on some devices having a 'big site' doesn't necessarily look that nice, so I think this will go better for people using their smartphones as well.

As of yet, I'm quite pleased with how the site looks, and I may be thinking about making more adjustments.

Vote now using your Google+ Account and let us know what you think about the site!