The skin, fat, muscles, bones, and other tissues that form a protective structure around vital organs in the area between the neck and the abdomen, including the heart, major blood vessels, lungs, and liver. The bones in the chest wall include the ribs, sternum (breastbone), and spine.
What are the layers of the chest wall?
The chest wall has 10 layers, namely (from superficial to deep) skin (epidermis and dermis), superficial fascia, deep fascia and the invested extrinsic muscles (from the upper limbs), intrinsic muscles associated with the ribs (three layers of intercostal muscles), endothoracic fascia and parietal pleura.
What is the chest wall called?
The chest wall, sometimes called the thoracic wall, protects the heart, liver, lungs and other vital organs. The wall is made up of the ribs, the sternum and cartilage. Together these pieces form a protective cavity within the abdomen.
What muscles are in the chest wall?
The thoracic wall is made up of five muscles: the external intercostal muscles, internal intercostal muscles, innermost intercostal muscles, subcostalis, and transversus thoracis. These muscles are primarily responsible for changing the volume of the thoracic cavity during respiration.
What is the main function of the chest?
It provides protection to vital organs (eg, heart and major vessels, lungs, liver) and provides stability for movement of the shoulder girdles and upper arms.
Is the chest wall muscle or bone?
The chest wall is made of bone, cartilage, ligaments and tendons and covered by muscle and soft tissues. The chest wall is designed specifically to protect the organs it surrounds and support respiration. With respiration the rib cage is designed to expand and contract with breathing in and out.
What are the chest landmarks?
Anterior landmarks of the chest include the nipple and sternal notch. The mid-sternal line (anterior median) is marked along the sternum from the sternal notch to the xiphoid process and, if needed, can be extended down the linea alba to the umbilicus.
How thick is the chest wall?
The average chest wall thickness in the overall cohort was 4.08 (1.4)cm at the 2nd ICS/MCL and 4.55 (1.7)cm at the 5th ICS/AAL.
Where is the lateral chest wall?
The lateral chest wall has the shape of a triangle, with its apex at the axilla (Fig. 1). The anterior border is the lateral boundary of the breast, the inferior border corresponds to an imaginary line extending posteriorly from the inframammary fold, and the posterior border is the posterior axillary line.
What does an inflamed chest wall feel like?
This condition happens when your rib cage cartilage becomes inflamed. The pain can be severe or mild. Although the pain is typically felt on the left side of your chest, it may also occur on the right side. Other symptoms include pain in your back and abdomen and pain that worsens when you cough or take a deep breath.
What helps chest wall pain?
Chest wall pain may result from an injury to the muscles, joints, or cartilage. In some cases, home treatments such as hot or cold therapy may help….These include:
- applying an ice pack to the chest.
- using heat packs.
- massaging the area.
- doing gentle stretches.
- taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen.
What is a chest wall mass?
It includes the rib cage, sternum, and thoracic vertebrae, along with connective tissue and muscles. Tumors can grow in the chest wall—both non-cancerous (b)enign and cancerous (malignant) in nature. Non-cancerous chest wall tumors are fairly common.
