Olathe man’s surgery to fix sunken chest could open new market for pediatric surgeon

Washington University in St. Louis says that although the Nuss procedure “can be successfully performed in the adult with excellent results,” it’s usually done on children. St. Luke’s in Kansas City, though nationally known for its cardiovascular department, doesn’t perform it on adults. A spokesman for the University of Kansas Health System said the system had one doctor, Emmanuel Daon, who did five of them last year. 

Even at the hospital in Virginia, any patient older than 25 has to get special permission from the hospital administration before the surgery is scheduled. 

But Iqbal, the director of pediatric and fetal surgery at Overland Park Regional, said the administrators there are fully on board and he’s ready to start offering the procedure to adults in Kansas City and beyond. 

“There’s a lot of people living with this who don’t realize there are options,” said Iqbal, who estimated he could do up to 20 adult procedures a year, depending on demand. “Even better for this region, is now you don’t have to go to Scottsdale, you don’t have to go to Virginia, we can do it right here. We have the technical know-how, and we’ve got all of the adult specialists.”