Double lung transplants into patients with reversed thoracic organs (situs inversus)

Years ago, people may have lived without realizing their organs were backward. Today, however, most people find out about the condition during a routine medical exam, Bharat said.

“Someone has tried to listen to their heart, and then they don’t find the heartbeat on the left side, so they get an X-ray, and everything looks reversed,” he said.

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Complicated surgery​

Like Deer, Vega was put on the lung transplant waiting list, and like Deer, needed individualized treatment. Performing an organ transplant on patients with situs inversus is an extraordinary surgical challenge, Bharat said.

“We have to replace the old lungs — which are reversed in the body — with new lungs from a donor who has a typical or normal placement,” he said. “Because the new lungs need to fit into a chest cavity that’s a mirror image, we have to make technical modifications in order to do the surgery.”

Just reattaching blood vessels created in utero for a left lung to openings on a “normal” right lung, for example, was especially difficult. In addition, Deer’s and Vega’s lungs were unique in how their backward organs had developed and grown new blood vessels to compensate for the reversal.

“All these alterations in the anatomy require very careful planning. We had to use specialized 3D scans, mold the new lung to fit into the chest cavity, and then figure out how to tailor vessels and structures to fit in the lung that’s on the normal side,” Bharat said.

“It’s like taking a left sleeve off a shirt and then figuring out how to reattach it to the right side of the shirt instead.”

BillTre said:

There are zebrafish mutants that have this effect.