Cardiac tamponade caused by broken sternal wire after pectus excavatum repair: a case report

Abstract

Complications of pectus excavatum surgery include pneumothorax, pleuritis, hemothorax, pericardial effusion, displacement of bar, pericarditis and cardiac injury, etc. This is the case of a 15-year-old boy with cardiac tamponade caused by pericarditis who had taken the operation for a pectus excavatum repair one year previously. The cause was a sternal wire which was used for attachment of the bar to sternum that had fractured and migrated through the pericardium causing a pericardial injury and a pericarditis.