Complications of funnel chest surgery

  At present, the mainstream surgery for the correction of funnel chest is Nuss surgery. This surgical method has the following characteristics: less trauma, faster recovery, fewer complications, better deformity correction, lower recurrence rate, and a wide range of people. Although the procedure has so many advantages, there are still some complications that may occur. The main ones are as follows: 1. Pneumothorax and hemothorax: the operation may damage the intercostal vessels, lung tissue, posterior sternal tissue vessels, and some patients have pulmonary alveoli in combination, which may also cause pneumothorax. Postoperative monitoring is important, if the patient appears short of breath pale blood pressure drop and other symptoms to pay attention to the pneumothorax hemothorax problem.  2, pneumonia pulmonary atelectasis: patients are reluctant to cough and cough up sputum after surgery because of fear of pain and other reasons, resulting in sputum Chu retention, causing pneumonia pulmonary atelectasis, which in turn leads to fever. Postoperative nebulized inhalation should be used to encourage patients to expel sputum and give analgesic treatment.  3. Heart rupture: For patients with recurrent disease and patients with heavy concave deformities, the pericardium or even the heart may be damaged during surgery, resulting in acute hemorrhage. At this time, the chest should be opened to stop bleeding, and if necessary, the upper body should be circulated.  4, pain: many patients will experience pain of varying degrees of time after surgery. The reason for the pain is related to whether the orthopedic plate placement is appropriate, whether there is an impact on the intercostal nerve, the degree of softness of the patient’s bones, the patient’s own constitution, and so on. Most patients after 1-3 months the pain basically disappeared, daily attention to rehabilitation training is also beneficial to recovery.  5, poor healing of the incision: the patient’s surgical incision is located on both sides of the chest, depending on the number of orthopedic plate there are 2-4 incisions, each incision is about 3 cm long, the incision are performed absorbable thread intracutaneous suture, no need to remove stitches and scar light. Few patients will have poor healing of the incision within six months for several reasons: allergic reaction of the body to the implant, increased tension of the implant on the incision due to displacement of the orthopedic plate, and weak healing ability of the patient’s thin musculoskeletal tissue. When poor healing occurs, some will grow through drug changes, some need to reappear suture, very few patients need to remove the orthopedic plate.  6, orthopedic plate displacement: orthopedic plate displacement is rare, the degree of displacement flip varies, the individual has completely flipped. The reasons for this are: the patient’s concave deformity is very serious and the concave point is tapered resulting in less contact between the orthopedic plate and the concave point, the patient’s postoperative activities are too violent or the chest is impacted. If there is a mild displacement does not affect the orthopedic effect can be suspended, otherwise the need to re-surgery to place the orthopedic plate.  7, nerve compression: the orthopedic plate may cause intercostal nerve compression, and the first rib may cause compression of the brachial plexus nerve after the sunken thorax is lifted. The resulting symptoms are chest pain or weakness in lifting the upper limbs. Active rehabilitation is an effective way to relieve the symptoms.  8. Shoulder imbalance and scoliosis: Patients can be seen to have shoulder imbalance and scoliosis performance due to thoracic discomfort that leads to long-term improper posture. Need to strengthen the guidance of patients for rehabilitation training, both can be adjusted.