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Aim: Minimally invasive repair for pectus excavatum (PE) has become a popular approach since 1998. Convex bar is place into the substernal position to leverage the deformity and left for approximately 24 to 36 months. We have noticed difficulties during some of these bars at removal. So we presented difficulties during the bar removal in this study. Methods: The medical files of 39 patients who removal of the bars at our clinic between June 2011 and March 2017 were reviewed retrospectively. The medical files were reviewed retrospectively and 9 cases involving difficulty removed the bar were included in this study. Patients were evaluated in terms of gender, age, the bar duration time on the body, duration of hospital stay, morbidity and mortality. Results: Mean patients age was 24.1 (range, smallest 19 and greatest 36) years. The overall mean duration of pectus bar maintenance was 35.5 (range, minimum 34 and maximum 38) months. While the mean duration of surgery was 50 minutes (range 38-52) in the non-difficulty group, the mean duration was 90 (range 74-110) minutes in the difficulty group. The causes of difficulties are mostly fibrosis, ossification and displacement of the intrathoracic region. Conclusion: Careful attention and multidisciplinary work are important for the removal of bars attached due to PE. Emerging difficulties can be overcome with the experience gained over time.

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Background: Primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP) is a clinical condition with an unclear etiology that occurs because of the rupture of pleural bulla or blebs. Several studies indicating the impact of weather conditions on PSP are present. However, the results are varying. The correlation between blood groups and PSP is yet unknown. In this study, we investigated the impact of altering weather conditions atmospheric pressure (AP), temperature, moisture, and wind velocity (WV) and blood groups on PSP. Materials and Methods: Eighty-six patients PSP diagnoses who were under follow-up and treated in our clinic between 2007 and 2015 were included in our study. Patients' data were retrospectively collected from hospital database patient files. The Regional Directorate of Meteorology provided data on weather conditions. Results: The collected data was examined. According to the results, AP and WV had no significant impact on PSP. Regarding the air temperature, values were statistically significantly high (p = 0.019). When comparing with other blood groups, the blood group with the highest resistance to temperature was type-0. This result was statistically significant (p = 0.029). Conclusions: In this study, we determined that temperatures above 15°C had an unexpected effect on the site of the PSP. Surprisingly, PSP risk was lower in patients with blood type-0 at high temperatures. We suggest that multicenter studies with a more extensive sample size should be conducted to fully understand the impact of air condition and blood type on PSP.