As you know, the heart is in the chest, slightly off-center to the left.
However, although it may seem strange, some individuals have their hearts positioned on the right.
This curious condition - very rare, considering that it concerns 1% of the general population - is called dextrocardia (NB: "-cardia" derives from the Greek and means "heart").
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DESTROCARDIA
Dextrocardia is a congenital anomaly, ie it is present from birth.
In addition to being positioned in a different way than usual, a person's heart with dextrocardia has another curious feature: it is a mirror image of a traditional heart.
Said in simpler words, in the destochardic individual, the canonical left side of the heart resides on the right, while the canonical right side of the heart resides on the left.
Therefore, reminding readers that the heart has two right cavities and two sinister cavities, in subjects with dextrocardia these cavities are completely inverted.
Obviously, this opposite anatomical structure of the heart also determines a total change of the blood vessels that reach the heart organ and depart from it.
DESTROCARDIA AND SITUS INVERSUS
People with dextrocardia can only present this strangeness - in this case one speaks more appropriately of isolated dextrocardia - or they can also have all the other thoracic and abdominal organs in an inverted position.The latter condition is better known as situs inversus or situs viscerum inversus .
