New surgery with the Pectus Up in the Hospital Fatima in Seville, Spain

This hospital in the Spanish Andalusian capital supports the Pectus Up as a treatment for the surgical correction of Pectus Excavatum.

On May 7, a new case of Pectus Excavatum was treated with the Pectus Up, the extrathoracic implant developed by Ventura Medical Technologies.

This time, the patient was a 27-year-old male with an asymmetric Pectus Excavatum, with a Haller index of 3.34 and a sternal rotation of 20.3º.

With the evolution of Pectus Up ever since its inception in 2016, the age range of patients who are candidates for this technique has significantly widen, since a priori it was conceived for pediatric patients and it is currently being implanted in adults as well.

The patient, who was already working with his laptop in the hospital room just 24 hours after the surgery, is recovering satisfactorily at home today.

The surgeons who performed the surgical intervention were Dr. Fernando Cózar, a specialist surgeon in the Thoracic Surgery Area of the Hospital Virgen Macarena and the Hospital Fátima of Seville; Dr. Gerardo Zúñiga, thoracic surgeon at the Hospital Civil of Málaga, and Dr. Sebastián Sevilla, thoracic surgeon at the Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Jaén.

This is the second time that the Hospital Fátima relies on the Pectus Up to treat a Pectus Excavatum patient. The first one was performed in September 2020, when a 22-year-old patient, from Adeslas insurance company, was eligible for this innovative procedure to correct his deformity.

Traditional techniques for the surgical treatment of Pectus Excavatum are intrathoracic, invasive and with a long convalescence period. With the uptake of the Pectus Up, which does not enter any element into the thoracic cavity and minimizes postoperative risks, new perspectives are opened for the treatment of this deformity, also known as funnel chest or sunken chest.

Dr. Cózar is a member of several medical associations, such as the Asociación Española de Cirujanos (Spanish Association of Surgeons), the Asociación Iberoamericana de Cirugía Torácica (Ibero-American Association of Thoracic Surgery) and the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, among others. He specializes in the Pectus Up technique, which can be seen first-hand in this video: the first one of a surgery —which he performed in September 2020 — recorded from the surgeon’s perspective.

Spain is not the only country where the Pectus Up technique has been implemented. It is also used in other European countries such as France, Portugal, Ireland and Greece, and also in Latin America, in Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Chile.