About
A device that came out of a cardiac ward, not a catalogue.
POSTHORAX® was developed in Vienna with the cardiac surgeons who were treating sternal instability — and who then put the device through a randomised trial rather than a brochure. It is manufactured in Austria under European Patent 1940330 and supplied across Australia from Queensland.
Vienna, and a problem worth solving
Sternal instability, dehiscence and mediastinitis are among the most serious causes of morbidity after cardiac surgery. The team at the cardiovascular surgery department of Hietzing Hospital in Vienna approached it mechanically: if the two halves of the sternum could be prevented from moving front to back, the cascade that follows might not start.
That thinking produced a rigid chest piece with a hyperextension stop and two cushions running parallel to the sternum — and, unusually for a support garment, a programme of randomised controlled trials to test whether it actually worked. It did, and the results were published in the peer-reviewed cardiothoracic literature between 2009 and 2017.
From 2010 the programme widened: twelve clinical studies covering 12,512 patients, none of them funded by the manufacturer, run in cardiac centres across seven countries — among them the Karolinska in Stockholm, the University Heart Centers of Hamburg and Zurich, and University Hospital Southampton.
The design won 1st Place in the City of Vienna Innovation Award in 2009, and the HSJ Efficiency in Medical Technology Award in 2013.
Read the trials
Made in Austria
Materials chosen for skin, not spec sheets
A 100% long-staple cotton shell against a healing wound; padding of 100% PU foam with a BW coating; plastic buckles for repeatable tension.
Patented geometry
European Patent 1940330 covers the design — the cushion placement and the non-flexible chest piece with a hyperextension stop that produce the support effect.
Single-patient by design
Supplied as a single-patient product under EU Medical Devices Regulation 2017/745. It is not reprocessed or shared, and it is not suitable for hospital laundry.
Supplied from Queensland
Posthorax Australia distributes the range to patients, hospitals and rehabilitation services nationwide, with a phone number that a person answers.
Questions about the device or the evidence?
Whether you are a patient a week out from surgery or a procurement officer building a case, the same number reaches us.