Operative Resection of a Chronic Flail Chest Nonunion Revealing Septic Pseudarthrosis: A Case Report.

We report a case of chest wall resection for painful chest wall nonunion, 5 years after traumatic flail chest and a first attempt at surgical treatment. The decision was made to perform surgery again after 2 years of unsuccessful well-conducted analgesic treatment. During surgery, we found the same sites of pseudarthrosis and decided to perform parietectomy of the fifth, sixth, and seventh ribs. A Gore-Tex patch was used to bridge the gap created by the resection. In immediate postoperative care, the patient's pain was quickly and sufficiently eased by stage 1 and 2 pain killers. The results of bone samples taken from the pseudarthrosis sites all found Propionibacterium acnes . Five months after surgery, the patient had considerable improvement in pain sensations. Computed tomography showed healing of ribs, the plate in place, and no sign of complications.