 Hey everybody, Dr. O here. Let's talk about your thoracic cage, we're going to talk about the sternum and your ribs here. So the sternum is going to have three parts, the manubrium, the body also known as the gladiolus and the xiphoid process. So the manubrium, manu meaning hand, it looks kind of like a knife, so you turned it over so that would be like the handle, so you have the handle, the body and the tip, the manubrium, the body or gladiolus and the xiphoid process, then we have our ribs. Not much else need to know about the sternum before we move on, but the sternal angle is going to be where the manubrium and the gladiolus come together, it's called that because it's not perfectly flat, there is a little bit of an angle there. The clavicular notch would be where the sternoclavicular joint would be, but that's not a huge deal right now. But then you have your ribs, so you will notice that you have 12 pairs of ribs and let's talk about true versus false ribs here. The first seven pairs of ribs are called true ribs and that's because they attach directly to the sternum. So rib one is hidden by the clavicle, so you can't really palpate it very well, but it attaches there to the manubrium, rib two attaches there right near that sternal angle actually, and then we have ribs three through seven, they're going to attach right onto the body of the sternum. So the first seven pairs of ribs are called true ribs because they attach directly to the sternum. The last five pair of ribs are called false ribs because they don't. So you'll notice that ribs eight, nine and 10, they actually attach to the costal cartilage of rib seven. So they do not attach directly to the sternum and ribs 11 and 12 don't attach at all. So those would be called your floating ribs. So you have seven pair of true ribs, five pairs of false ribs, two of which are floating. So don't add them all up and think there's 14 pairs of ribs. There's seven pairs of true ribs, five pairs of false ribs. The last two are also known as floating ribs because they don't attach in the front. Their job is to protect the kidneys there in the back. So again, I've already mentioned you can't really palpate rib one. So rib two is going to be a very important palpation point if you're counting ribs or counting intercostal spaces, like if you're listening to the heart or putting on pads for an EKG, those types of things. The xyfoid process begins as cartilage, but it does start to ossify later in life during middle age. So the key thing to note about that tip of the xyfoid process is to avoid it if you're doing CPR, which is why you count up from the bottom of the sternum. You do not want to. You can actually pierce the liver if the xyfoid process were to break or be dislocated or something while performing CPR. So the xyfoid process, that's the main reason to know where it is is to stay away from it if you're doing chest compressions on somebody. All right. So that's your thoracic cage. That's your 12 pairs of ribs and that is your sternum. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.