SITUS INVERSUS

• Anatomic arrangement reversed to right-

left direction/mirrorimage

• aortic arch, gastric fundus, heart,

pulmonary fissures, bronchi

• 5% to 10% incidence of congenital heart

disease
DEXTROCARDIA
• heart is shifted to right hemithorax.
• Assoc. with hypoplastic right lung and
increased incidence of chd (left-to-right
shunts)
• Dextroposition
• Heart shifted to the right
• Hypoplastic right lung, CHD
• Dextroversion
• Cardiac apex (R)
• Stomach and aortic knob (L)
• LV still on the left but anterior to RV
SITUS INVERSUS
• Bilateral Left sidedness
• Dextrocardia
• Situs Ambiguous
• Polysplenia

• Bilateral Right sidedness

• Dextrocardia
• Asplenia
KARTAGENER
• Situs inversus with dextrocardia
• Bronchiectasis
• Snusitis
 Pathology
Two main types
• dextrocardia of embryonic arrest
(also known as isolated dextrocardia)
• the heart is further right in the thorax
• associated with severe defects
(pulmonary hypoplasia)
• dextrocardia with situs inversus
• heart being a mirror image situated on
the right side
• dextrocardia situs inversus totalis - all
visceral organs to be mirrored
• Prone to bowel, oesophagal, bronchial
and cardiac problems
Diagnosis
• ECG.

Technical dextrocardia
• ECG reading that has no basis in the
patient's anatomy.
• caused usually by the technician
inadvertently swapping the limb leads on a
12 lead ECG.
• extreme axis deviation.
Practical Points
• important to exclude spurious
dextrocardia first. Therefore it is
important to check the orientation
marker on the image
• ECG leads must be placed in reversed
positions on a person with
dextrocardia. In addition, when
defibrillating
• Pads placed in reverse positions.