Chest Wall Conditions We Treat

Helping your child move past his or her malformation and regain function, sports performance, and confidence with a newly contoured chest is what motivates our care team to achieve excellent outcomes. We evaluate and treat children, adolescents, and adults with a range of chest wall deformities, including:

Pectus excavatum - Pectus carinatum

How we evaluate

At the Stanford Medicine Children’s Health Chest Wall Program, your child will meet with our team as we obtain a complete history and physical exam. We often recommend advanced diagnostic testing to determine the ideal intervention to fit his or her individual needs. These diagnostic tests may include the following:

  • Cardiac echocardiogram to determine whether the chest wall abnormality is affecting the position and function of the heart.
  • Pulmonary function testing as needed to measure lung capacity, lung expansion, and oxygen delivery.
  • Dynamic MRI testing—a real-time MRI that provides a series of images in rapid succession.
  • Exercise stress test

Treatment options

Once the workup is complete, we will review with you the best treatment options for your child’s condition. For mild to moderate chest wall abnormalities, nonsurgical methods are always considered first. Severe abnormalities may warrant surgery. We provide a variety of innovative pain control options that often make our hospital stays shorter than the usual, with children possibly returning home after just a few days.
Learn more about pain control >

We are happy to provide consultation and follow-up visits via telehealth, as many of our patients live throughout the state and region.