Novel index to estimate the cephalocaudal extent of the excavation in pectus excavatum - JPS article

Hi, I'm Ellen in Cisko at Cincinnati Children's and here's an article you should know about. In this article, the authors introduce a new index for patients with Pectus Excavatum. The indices that are currently primarily used are the Haller index and the correction index and they tell us about the severity of the deformity. This new index, or the Titanic index as they're calling it, takes into account the extent of the deformity. Here's the calculation for how to calculate it, but essentially, it's the percentage of the sternum that lies behind the anterior costal line as seen on CT scans. So the authors did a retrospective review of patients at their institution in Argentina who had undergone minimally invasive repair of Pectus Excavatum and calculated all these indices. They found a weak correlation between the Titanic index and the other indices, but also they found the Titanic index might be more helpful for helping determine how many bars a patient's going to need for repair. The threshold they established here was 66.5%, meaning that patients with a higher Titanic index than that probably needed more than two bars. More study is needed for this index, but let us know if you might incorporate it into your practice in the future. And stay tuned for more articles you should know about.