A 66-year-old man's heart is on the right and his liver on the left.
A man who was admitted to the hospital complaining of cough and chest pain was sent for an X-ray examination. It turned out that the patient's heart is mirrored relative to the norm, as are the abdominal organs. This disease is called situs inversus totalis, or transposition of internal organs.
The most interesting thing is that if the heart and internal organs are mirrored together, then this condition is considered normal and does not lead to health problems. However, if the heart is located on the "correct" side, and the rest of the organs are mirrored, this is considered abnormal and can lead to serious consequences - including death.
In the case of this 66-year-old man, all organs were located on one side, nothing threatened his health in this regard. The cough and chest pain were both symptoms of a common upper respiratory tract infection, so after treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs, the patient recovered within a few days.
Situs inversus is a rare disease: one case in 10,000. But the most interesting thing is that often people until their death do not know about its existence, since this condition does not bring any discomfort.
There is a well-known case of a 99-year-old woman whose autopsy after death showed that her abdominal organs were mirrored, and her heart was in a normal position. In theory, such a condition should be dangerous and can significantly shorten the patient's life, but in this particular case it did not manifest itself in any way.
Nikita Shevtsov