Medical reviewer
Prof. Dr.
Mustafa Yüksel.
Chest Wall International Group President Thoracic & cardiovascular surgery 2,000+ pectus operations
The surgeon who checks the case for not operating performs the operation for a living. That is the whole point. If the non-surgical argument on this site cannot survive a chest wall surgeon reading it, it does not belong here.
- 48 yrs
- In thoracic surgery
- 19
- Countries operated in
- 100+
- Surgeons trained
- 5,000+
- Clinic patients treated
- 450+
- CWIG members, 52 countries
Why him
A surgeon reviews the case
Most people writing about non-surgical pectus correction have never seen the inside of a chest. Most surgeons writing about it have no reason to take the non-surgical route seriously. Prof. Dr. Yüksel is the rare case of someone who does both, at volume, and has no stake in which one you pick.
He runs the surgical side - Nuss, Ravitch, Abramson, the sandwich technique for mixed deformities - and he runs the non-surgical side in the same clinic: vacuum bell, compression bracing, rib flare orthoses. When a patient walks into PektusKlinik, the honest answer is sometimes an operation and sometimes a brace. He has spent thirty years having to tell the difference.
Non-surgical correction and surgical management are not in opposition. Both have indications. The goal is to give patients accurate information to make the right decision for their specific case.
That is why he reviews this site. Not to endorse a product - to make sure that when mrpectus tells you a method works, the claim holds up, and when it tells you surgery is the better call for your chest, that holds up too.
The collaboration
How the review actually works
It is not a logo at the bottom of a page. It is a working process, running since 2020.
Draft goes to him before it publishes. He reads it for clinical accuracy - whether the mechanism described is real, whether the evidence cited says what the article claims it says, whether the framing of surgery is fair to patients for whom surgery is the right answer.
Things come back marked. Claims get softened, cut, or sourced properly. Some articles have been rewritten twice. The ones that survive carry his name at the top, and that name means he read it - not that he was paid to appear.
- 2020
- Reviewing since
- Pre-publication
- When review happens
- Every article
- What it covers
The record
Forty-eight years, in order
Ankara to Istanbul by way of the Royal Brompton, and a department, a society and a clinic built along the way.
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Born in Ankara
Turkey. He would spend the next seven decades within a few hundred kilometres of where he started, and operate on patients from four continents.
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MD, Ankara University Faculty of Medicine
Medical degree from one of Turkey’s oldest medical faculties. The start of a career now in its forty-eighth year.
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Specialised in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery
Completed his specialisation at the Ankara Atatürk Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Centre - the national referral centre for chest disease.
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Assistant chief, Heybeliada Chest Diseases Centre
Two years running thoracic surgery at the Heybeliada Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Centre in Istanbul.
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Founded the thoracic surgery department at Marmara University
Arrived as an assistant professor and built the Department of Thoracic Surgery at Marmara University Faculty of Medicine from nothing. It is still running.
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Royal Brompton Hospital, London
A year under Dr. Peter Goldstraw at the Royal Brompton - the surgeon who wrote much of the modern staging system for lung cancer.
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Full professor
Associate professor in 1994, full professor in 1999. He has taught thoracic surgery at Marmara and, more recently, Demiroğlu Bilim University in Istanbul.
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Founded the Chest Wall International Group
CWIG is the international body for chest wall deformity surgeons. He founded it and served the first two terms as its president.
450+ Members, 52 countries -
Founded PektusKlinik, Istanbul
Turkey’s first treatment centre dedicated entirely to pectus - surgical and non-surgical under one roof, with physiotherapy, nutrition and psychological support alongside.
5,000+ Patients in five years -
Began reviewing mrpectus
Every article, protocol rationale and surgical comparison on this site has passed through him since. He is still reviewing.
Clinical scope
Both sides of the same chest
The reason his review is worth anything: he is not choosing between methods he has only read about.
Surgical
- Nuss procedure
- Minimally invasive bar repair for pectus excavatum - the operation he has performed most.
- Ravitch procedure
- Open repair, used where the deformity or the patient’s age rules out a bar.
- Abramson procedure
- The reverse-bar operation for pectus carinatum.
- Sandwich technique
- For mixed deformities, where excavatum and carinatum appear in the same chest.
Non-surgical
- Vacuum bell therapy
- Suction-cup correction for pectus excavatum, used instead of surgery in suitable cases.
- Compression bracing
- Orthosis treatment for pectus carinatum - the standard non-surgical route in growing patients.
- Rib flare bracing
- Bandage and orthosis protocols for flared lower ribs.
- Supportive care
- Chest physiotherapy, breathing work, nutrition and psychological support around the correction itself.
Teaching
He trained the surgeons who train the surgeons
More than a hundred surgeons have come from abroad to learn pectus repair from him, and he has operated in nineteen countries teaching the technique he developed. The bar used in that repair is his patent.
Alongside it: articles and book editorships on thoracic surgery and oesophageal disease, and surgical technique content published through CTSNet, the cardiothoracic surgery network.
Positions
Societies and appointments
- Chest Wall International Group
- Founder, 2009. President for the first two terms. 450+ members across 52 countries.
- Chest Wall and Deformities Pectus Society
- Founder and current president.
- Turkish Thoracic Surgery Association
- Past president of the national association.
- European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery
- Member of EACTS.
- CTSNet
- Member of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Network, where his surgical technique content is published.
- Turkish Joint Surgery Association
- Permanent member.
- Marmara University
- Founded and led the Department of Thoracic Surgery; professor since 1999.
- Demiroğlu Bilim University
- Department of Thoracic Surgery, Istanbul.
Review scope
What gets reviewed
Every article on the blog
Clinical claims, protocol rationale and research interpretation across pectus excavatum, carinatum and rib flare - checked before the article publishes, not after.
The correction protocols
Where evidence supports a method, it is cited. Where the evidence is thin, the page says so plainly instead of implying more certainty than exists.
Anything comparing surgery to the alternative
The comparisons that matter most are the ones where I have the strongest incentive to be unfair. Those get the closest reading from the person who performs the operation.
Elsewhere
Check him yourself
Every claim on this page is public. His clinic, his profiles and his published work are below.
