MAINTENANCE OF CHEST WALL STABILITY.

The surgeon is faced with the need to assist in the maintenance of stability of the chest wall in two sets of circumstances: (1) when stability has been disrupted by accidental trauma with resultant 'flail' or 'stove-in' chest; (2) when stability has been jeopardized by surgical intervzntion, likely again in two circumstances: (a) with intentional mobilization of part of the chest wall, usually the sternum, for correction of congenital deformities, of which pectus excavatum is the most common, and (b) with resection of part of the chest wall in the management of primary or metastatic rib tumours, or pulmonary tumours which have invaded the chest wall. The purpose of this paper is to list some of the methods described in the literature for the maintenance of chest wall stability (and from their number none can be uniformly satisfactory) and to review the methods used, in the circumstances outlined above, in the Regional Thoracic Unit in Edinburgh.

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