Acquired Restrictive Thoracic Dystrophy Induced Cor Pulmonale

Wu, Hsu-Ping
Wu, Tien-Yu
Hou, Charles Jia-Yin
Tsai, Cheng-Ho
Wu, Yih-Jer

¹Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Mackay Memorial Hospital;
²Department of Medicine, Mackay Medical College, and Mackay Medicine, Nursing and Management College, and Taipei Medical University;
³Institute of Traditional Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Received: November 9, 2009 Accepted: February 9, 2010

Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Dr. Yih-Jer Wu, Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Mackay Memorial Hospital, No. 92, Sec. 2, Chung-Shan North Road, Taipei 10449, Taiwan. Tel: 886-2-2543-3535 ext. 2456; Fax: 886-2-2543-3535 ext. 3238; E-mail: [email protected]

Acta Cardiologica Sinica 26(2):p 132-135, June 2010.

Acquired restrictive thoracic dystrophy (ARTD), a rare iatrogenic disease, is characterized by an underdeveloped thoracic cage resulting from an inappropriate surgical correction of pectus excavatum, the most common type of chest wall deformity. We describe a 29-year-old young man with ARTD, stemming from pectus excavatum correction surgery in his toddler age, who developed cor pulmonale with chronic respiratory acidosis, hypoxemia, and moderate pulmonary hypertension. His symptoms were partially ameliorated after medical treatment. Surgical correction of the chest wall was suggested, but declined because of high mortality and morbidity rates incurred by the operation.