Surgery

Surgical options to repair pectus excavatum

Pectus excavatum is a condition where a person's breastbone is sunken into the chest. While the sunken breastbone is often noticeable shortly after birth, the severity of pectus excavatum typically worsens during the adolescent ...

Cardiology

Heart repair breakthroughs replace surgeon's knife

(AP)—Have a heart problem? If it's fixable, there's a good chance it can be done without surgery, using tiny tools and devices that are pushed through tubes into blood vessels.

Immunology

A new clue to predicting pre-eclampsia

(Medical Xpress) -- An indication of whether a mother will develop pre-eclampsia, the most common and severe pregnancy-related disease, has been identified by a University of Sydney study.

Cardiology

FDA favors innovative heart valve for the frail

The first artificial heart valve designed to be implanted without major surgery appears to help patients who are too frail to undergo chest-opening surgery, according to federal health reviewers.

Sternum

The sternum or breastbone, in vertebrate anatomy, is a flat bone. It probably first evolved in early tetrapods as an extension of the pectoral girdle; it is not found in fish. In amphibians and reptiles it is typically a shield-shaped structure, often composed entirely of cartilage. It is absent in both turtles and snakes. In birds it is a relatively large bone and typically bears an enormous projecting keel to which the flight muscles are attached. Only in mammals does the sternum take on the elongated, segmented form seen in humans. In some mammals, such as opossums, the individual segments never fuse and remain separated by cartilagenous plates throughout life.

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