"Thoracic Surgery Question" Topic

…because there has to be someone on TMP who will know, right?

At the gym today, this young guy in the locker room had a perfectly neat keloidal scar starting precisely below the xiphoid process and extending below the waistband of his shorts, including bisecting the navel. Straight as an arrow. No other surrounding scars.

My question would then be, what kind of godawful surgery would require splitting someone from sternum to mons? Honestly, when I saw it I think I made a ? face.

Any major abdominal surgery could do that. I have a similar scar from bariatric surgery. His could be an old scar for vascular surgery, major bowel surgery or from a trauma surgery… lots of possibilities. With laprascopic surgery becoming the norm these type of scars are found less often.
BTW I am an RN with >41 years in the field, >27 in ICU.

liver transplant?
A friend of mine was stationed in Germany in the late 70's and needed "exploratory" surgery to find an infection.
they essentially cut him un two like a stagr magician's assistant and sewed him back together. It left a hideous scar.

Yes, the surgeon's mantra: Incisions heal from side to side, not end to end. If it's a matter of missing something or not being able to reach it vs. making a larger incision, the latter wins. Many people have gone in for laproscopic surgery, where they make small holes, insert instruments and use cameras to watch what they are doing, and come out with big incisions when the problem was too difficult to deal with or something went wrong.

If he'd been older, I would have immediately chalked it up to any of the things you guy suggested. I suppose given his youth and the advances in minimally invasive techniques, I discounted the idea that sometimes they still need to split you like a fish.

Trauma laparotomy.

I've seen a scar like that as a result of a nephrectomy, but the navel wasn't bisected. The incision went around it. Probably easier to stitch back that way.