Reoperation after failure of Nuss procedure on severe Wenlin chest

Abstract

Wenlin chest is a rare complex deformity. It may be misdiagnosed as pectus carinatum or pectus excavatum due to the presence of both protrusion and depression. In the early years, it was just regarded as a kind of pectus carinatum. Considering the operation of this deformity was Ravich procedure, which was also normally used for pectus carinatum, the diagnosis did not affect the treatment. However, once misdiagnosed as pectus excavatum and treated with Nuss procedure, it would be difficult to obtain good results. We met a 22-year-old female Wenlin chest patient recently. She was misdiagnosed as pectus excavatum and underwent Nuss procedure in local hospital 3 years before. Because of no effect, the patient had to come to our hospital for another operation. We performed Wenlin procedure and Wang procedure for her and achieved satisfactory results.