[Segmental sternal dislocation in children. Apropos of a surgically treated case]

The authors report one operated case of traumatic sternal segmental dislocation in a child, and propose a mechanism for this uncommon lesion. A fourteen year old boy was admitted in emergency for anterior chest pain, occurring during an exercise in parallel bars without any fall. X ray showed traumatic dislocation of the upper sternal segment. After 12 hours, because of bad clinical tolerance (pain, dyspnea with sweats and disphagia) reduction and plate stabilization (Senegas plate) was performed with immediate pain relief. The boy returned to school after 10 days. Plate was removed two months later after healing, with good clinical and radiological results. According to rare published cases, conservative treatment can be proposed in very young children because of dislocation remodeling. By others, in case of bad tolerance, surgical treatment is suggested despite the inconvenient of device's removal. The originality of this case is the indirect lesion mechanism. Hypothesis is given by authors. Treatment by plate is easy and gives immediate pain relief with good clinical and radiological results in teen-agers.