Surgical repair of pectus carinatum

Abstract

Pectus carinatum represents a variety of protrusion deformities of the anterior chest wall. Although various non-operative methods of treatment have been employed, surgery has been widely accepted as the only effective method for the correction of pectus carinatum. We evaluate our 14 year single center experience of pectus carinatum correction on 111 patients using a uniform technique of internal stabilization employing stainless steel struts. Operative correction required double bilateral chondrotomy parasternally and at points of transition to normal ribs, followed by detorsion of the sternum, retrosternal mobilization and correction of the everted sternum as well as of the everted and inverted ribs. The mobilized sternum after incomplete wedge osteotomy was finally stabilized by one transternal and two bilateral parasternal metal struts. The corrections were completed with successful repair in 109 patients (98.2%). Major recurrences in 2 patients (1.8%) were corrected while mild recurrence were observed in 3 patients (2.7%).