title: Experience with a total muscle-sparing approach for thoracotomies in neonates, infants, and children.
abstract: We have adopted a total muscle-sparing technique for thoracotomies in infants and children. The technique preserves the latissimus dorsi and serratus anterior muscles and provides excellent exposure for most thoracic and mediastinal operations. Thirty-two such procedures have been performed with only one complication, a small wound seroma. Use of this technique may not only decrease postoperative pain and splinting, but may decrease the incidence of scoliosis and muscle dysfunction found in children having undergone thoracotomies as infants.
authors.affiliation: Cora and Webb Mading Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, Ben Taub Hospital, Houston 77030.
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Rothenberg
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Pokorny
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D009132:Muscles / Q000601:surgery*; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000517:prevention & control; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000517:prevention & control; D013908:Thoracotomy / Q000379:methods*; D013909:Thorax