Man with organs on other side stumps doctors in UP

GORAKHPUR: It took two stones in his gall bladder for Jamaluddin Ansari, 43, a government employee, to discover his anomalous anatomy.

Doctors at the Kushinagar District Hospital discovered that he exhibited a rare medical condition called situs inversus — his major organs, including heart, gallbladder and liver, were on the exact opposite side of where they should have been. They were functioning normally, though, which is perhaps why Ansari didn’t know he was special for 43 years.

The condition — in this case situs inversus totalis since the mirroring of organs is total — was first described by Italian surgeon Marco Severino in 1643, and is something Ansari shares with singer Enrique Iglesias and actor Catherine O’Hara. It is also the reason why James Bond villain Dr Julius No survives an attack by a Chinese mafia syndicate in New York in the 1920s (in his early years), although in Ian Fleming’s book it isn’t clear whether the good doctor’s dextrocardia (literally, right-sided heart) is just dextrocardia or dextrocardia situs inversus. The latter may be more likely because he seems healthy (despite losing his hands to, and being shot by, the Tongs) until he meets Bond.

One in only 10,000 people exhibit one of the forms of situs inversus.

Ansari seems to have been healthy too, till his gall stones appeared — one 10mm and the other 12mm in diameter. He initially thought it was acidity, but in mid-September, when the pain became unbearable, he went to the hospital where a scan discovered his condition.

An ECG and ultrasound confirmed it. Ansari was told about his anomalies and he was referred to a specialist in Gorakhpur, who operated on him on September 30, removing the two stones. As the doctor put it, the surgery was difficult simply because doctors are trained to operate on people whose organs are where they are meant to be.

Laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon Shashi Kant Dikshit, who operated on Ansari, said, “The patient was suffering from a rare genetic disorder. The vital organs of such patients, including heart, liver and gallbladder are located on the opposite side – as mirror images of their natural positions. Usually, surgery in such a patient is difficult. For Ansari, the surgery was performed using a high-resolution 3-D laparoscopic machine.” The operation took only 25 minutes.