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Question

I was born with my chest curving inwards. What is the name for this condition and can I have some information about it?

Answer

The medical term for this is pectus excavatum and the lay term is funnel chest. This is usually an isolated abnormality of the skeleton, but can be associated with certain connective tissue diseases such as Marfan's syndrome. Rarely, it is associated with rickets.

There is an occasional link between poor exercise tolerance and funnel chest, but this is usually because people with this condition are led to believe that they shouldn't exercise.

In many people with the condition, the heart is shifted to the left, and there may be some problems with the functioning of the heart. Mitral valve prolapse and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome can be associated with this. However, any cardiac abnormalities are usually mild and have little clinical significance.

Surgical correction of the pectus is not usually physiologically beneficial, although some people with severe deformities may want the defect repaired for cosmetic reasons.