Intervention of the nuss procedure on the mental health of pectus excavatum patients

Abstract

Pectus excavatum (PE) is the most common congenital chest wall deformity, but little is known about the influence of the Nuss surgical procedure on mental health of patients with PE. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the influence of the PE Nuss surgical procedure on mental health in Chinese patients and identify the predictors of psychological status for PE. Patients with PE (n = 266) underwent a standard surgical procedure by the same surgeon and did the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) and the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) questionnaires before and 1 year after surgery. Additionally, platelet reactivity of postoperative PE patients was assessed. We found that PE patients after surgery performed better in the questionnaires and the frequency of mental health problems in the patients was lower than before. Most significantly, four mental disorders were alleviated after surgery, namely somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, and anxiety. What is more, age, suffering year, and platelet aggregation responses to serotonin and epinephrine of PE patients partially were involved with the postoperative alleviation of mental disorders. In conclusion, the mental health level of PE patients could be effectively improved via the Nuss surgical procedure, and the earlier surgery might turn out better.