Specialties
Chest wall surgery
Lung cancers that grow into the chest wall and rare primary tumors of the chest wall need to be removed or resected. With modern prosthetics and meticulous surgical techniques, chest wall tumors can be removed from patients with good functional and cosmetic outcomes.
Surgery for Congenital Chest Wall Abnormalities
Pectus excavatum (funnel chest) and pectus carinatum (pigeon chest) are the most common congenital chest wall abnormalities seen. They are often noticed as children grow and develop. Commonly other conditions are seen with pectus deformities such as scoliosis (curvature of the spine), chest wall pains, exercise intolerance, recurrent respiratory infections and sometimes compression of the heart.
In addition to the more common disorders, rare disorders such as Poland’s syndrome and thoracic insufficiency syndrome patients are evaluated and treated. Typically the treatment of these disorders is multidisciplinary with plastic surgery and orthopedic surgery involvement in the care of these patients.
Dr. Gary Raff of the UC Davis Pediatric Heart Center performs our surgeries for congenital chest wall abnormalities.