-
- J Terrance Davis, Frederick R Long, Brent H Adler, Robert G Castile, and Samuel Weinstein.
- Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, USA. tdavis@chi.osu.edu
- Ann. Thorac. Surg. 2004 Feb 1;77(2):445-8.
BackgroundLateral thoracic expansion is a procedure that has been described to enlarge the thoracic cage in patients with Jeune's asphyxiating thoracic dystrophy. The procedure involves separating ribs from their periosteum and plating them together in an expanded fashion with titanium struts. We have speculated that the ribs heal in this situation, despite the absence of surrounding periosteum, and that new rib formation occurs in the liberated periosteum.MethodsRadiographic studies of patients who have undergone lateral thoracic expansion were reviewed for evidence of rib healing or periosteal new bone formation.ResultsThis study presents radiologic evidence that rib healing actually occurs, as does periosteal ossification.ConclusionsLateral thoracic expansion creates additional chest wall that is formed of autologous tissue, fully healed, and not ultimately dependent on titanium struts.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..