Surgical repair of congenital cleft of the breast bone

What is it about?

Complete cleft of the breast bone is extremely rare with about 25 cases reported in the last century. The defect leads to heart protrusion outside the chest wall. We repaired the cleft by direct suture which was feasible without compressing the heart. The pericardium which is the membranous layer surrounding the heart was absent in this patients. we created a flap of the residual pericardium and closed it by direct suture.

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Why is it important?

direct repair of the sternum and pericardium is feasible without affecting the hemodynamics