Five Cases of Pectus Excavatum in Cats Surgically Corrected by Internal Fixation with a Small Animal Orthopedic Bone Plate

Abstract

Pectus excavatum is a rare congenital condition that develops in young cats, presenting as a deformity of the sternum and costal cartilage. Consequently, it causes an abnormality in the chest shape, resulting in symptoms such as dyspnea, coughing, and stunted growth. Surgical correction is required to ameliorate these symptoms. Here, we report on the successful surgical correction of the thorax in five young cats (aged 7 to 22 weeks) with this condition using a small animal orthopedic bone plate. We bent the orthopedic bone plate into a semi-elliptical shape to subsequently ligate and affixed it to the region of the sternum with the greatest concavity as well as to the left and right costal cartilage segments using non-absorptive sutures. Normalization of the thoracic morphology and disappearance of clinical symptoms were noted immediately after the operation and no recurrence was observed during the follow-up period (8 to 48 months; median: 15 months) in all five cases. Additionally, based on the evaluation results, using an anatomical and clinical severity score before and after surgery, this procedure appears to be useful in treating pectus excavatum in cats.