Pectus excavatum: evaluation of Nuss technique by objective methods.

Pectus excavatum (PEX) is the most frequent congenital deformity of the anterior chest wall. Few studies have classified the degree of anatomical distortion in an objective manner. Our objective was to present two new clinical and original methods for evaluation of PEX deformity developed in our service (chest cyrtometry and anthropometric index) that are simple and easily applicable in the office. Twenty patients with PEX (submitted to the technique of Nuss) and forty normal chest patients were studied: all patients were evaluated by the same objective methods. Our results suggest that the objective clinical methods are more sensitive or precise than the radiological ones by measuring the deformity in a direct manner external to the chest.