American Board of Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery
Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery
Thoracic Surgeons work in the chest, surgeries of the esophagus, trachea, lungs, diaphragm, and heart, cardiac surgeons, heart and lung transplants, and more.
Thoracic surgery encompasses the operative, perioperative, and surgical critical care of patients who acquired and congenital pathologic conditions within the chest. Thoracic surgeons treat diseased or injured organs in the chest, including the esophagus (muscular tube that passes food to the stomach), trachea (windpipe), pleura (membranes that cover and protect the lung), mediastinum (area separating the left and right lungs that contains the heart), chest wall, diaphragm (separates the chest from the abdomen), pericardium (membrane covering the heart), heart (including the pericardium, coronary arteries, valves and myocardium), and lungs. The most common diseases requiring thoracic surgery include heart lesions, such as coronary artery disease and valve problems, lung cancer, chest trauma, esophageal cancer, emphysema, and heart and lung transplantation.
Subspecialty
Congenital Cardiac Surgery
Congenital Cardiac Surgery refers to the procedures that are performed to repair the many types of heart defects that may be present at birth and can occasionally go undiagnosed into adulthood. These may include patching holes between chambers of the heart, improving blood flow to the lungs, or heart and lung transplantation.
