Sharing a case: 17m with barrel chest
Had a barrel chest patient recently. (uncommon condition, though not the first one we’ve seen)
He is now 17 y/o. His chest wall looked normal when he was a kid, but about five years ago, he noticed it was getting wider from front to back. Over time, it became way more obvious, and now his chest wall has a barrel-like shape. After seeing a doctor at a local hospital, he was diagnosed with a barrel chest and got referred to us for surgery.
During the surgery, our team made a small cut on the side of his chest and used the Wenlin procedure to fix it. Barrel chest usually shows up in the elderly, especially those with chronic lung issues, and for them, it’s a secondary lesion that can’t be fixed with surgery. But younger people can have it too, usually as a primary condition. Most of the time, they don’t have any symptoms. They just don’t like how their chest looks, so a lot of them want surgery.
PS： The pictures and details have all been approved for sharing by the patient.