Dawn E. Jaroszewski, M.D.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of surgical repair on the cardiopulmonary function of pectus excavatum patients. Also, to demonstrate that there is an additional improvement in the cardiopulmonary function of adult pectus excavatum patients after the removal of the intrathoracic bars.

Pectus excavatum (PE) is a common chest wall deformity where the sternum is displaced posteriorly. In severe cases, surgery is performed to correct the defect (1). In recent years, minimally invasive surgery with the placement of stainless steel support bars has been increasingly performed in patients over the age of 17 years (1-9). Because of the decreased malleability and tremendous pressure required to hold the chest wall in the corrected position, post-operative pain control has been a significant problem in this patient population (2,6,9-12). Thoracic epidurals are commonly employed however mean hospitalizations of up to 7 days have been required before adequate pain control on oral analgesics is obtained (3-5, 13) and patients are suitable for discharge.

It is hypothesized that using the ONQ system (I-Flow Corporation, Lake Forest CA) with bilateral intercostal catheter infusion would provide adequate post operative pain control with a significantly shorter hospital length-of-stay than thoracic epidural. Total use of narcotics for 1 week following surgery would also be less with the ONQ system versus epidural.

This study aims to review the cardiopulmonary evaluation of pectus excavatum patients that are undergoing surgical repair of their deformity.

The purpose of this study is to genomically characterize pectus excavatum for the purpose of identifying candidate genes that may be causal in families with multiple pectus excavatum affected members and in those with sporadically occurring pectus excavatum.