Descrição
Background: Surgical repair of pectus excavatum (PE) has become more popular due to improvements
in the minimally invasive Nuss procedure. The pre-surgical assessment of PE patients requires
Computerized Tomography (CT), as the malformation characteristics vary from patient to patient.
Objective: This work aims to characterize soft tissue thickness (STT) external to the ribs among PE
patients. It also presents a comparative analysis between the anterior chest wall surface before and after
surgical correction.
Methods: Through surrounding tissue segmentation in CT data, STT values were calculated at different
lines along the thoracic wall, with a reference point in the intersection of coronal and median planes. The
comparative analysis between the two 3D anterior chest surfaces sets a surgical correction influence area
(SCIA) and a volume of interest (VOI) based on image processing algorithms, 3D surface algorithms, and
registration methods.
Results: There are always variations between left and right side STTs (2.54±2.05 mm and
2.95±2.97 mm for female and male patients, respectively). STTs are dependent on age, sex, and body
mass index of each patient. On female patients, breast tissue induces additional errors in bar manual
; Direito-Santos, Bruno 
