When Ashok Shivnani, 64, was about to have surgery in Mumbai to remove a tumor from his kidney, doctors realized that most of his chest and abdominal organs and many blood vessels were on the opposite side of his body—a condition known as “situs inversus.”
Doctors believe that Shivnani is the only person in the world whose internal organs are positioned mirror-opposite of where they should be, according to the Telegraph.
In his body, the inferior vena cava and aorta, which carry blood into and out of the heart, were reversed. He also had two livers, no small intestine, and three vessels supplying blood to his infected kidney.
“While operating we were supposed to know the exact location of everything that we are going to touch. But in this case we were not sure which veins were entering where,” Dr. Prakash Sanzgiri, Shivnani’s doctor, said in a Times of India article.
Previously, Shivnani had survived two hernia operations and been examined for chronic lung disease without knowing about his one-of-a-kind anatomy.
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