thoracotomy

Noun.  (surgery) The surgical procedure of making an incision into the chest, normally as a first step to gain access to the thoracic organs, such as the heart, the lungs, and the esophagus.

This is an unmodified, but possibly outdated, definition from Wiktionary and used here under the Creative Commons license. Wiktionary is a great resource. If you like it too, please donate to Wikimedia.

This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.