Organs in the body tend to be in a set order and position. This is useful when it comes to diagnosing certain conditions. Anyone with appendicitis or gallstones, for example, will tell you exactly where the agonising pain is. Sometimes, though, organs end up in the “wrong” place.

Developmentally, one of the largest single organ abnormalities is dextrocardia where the heart, instead of being slightly over to the left (known as levocardia), is flipped to the right. This is a fairly rare occurrence, about one in 12,000 people are born this way.

Where this happens in the absence of any other abnormalities, people will live a normal life, with the only “symptoms” being a different readout on an ECG.

In some people, all the abdominal and thorax contents can be flipped to the opposite side, this is known as situs inversus totalis. The singers Donny Osmond and Enrique Iglesias have this condition, as does actress Catherine O’Hara. Osmond’s condition was diagnosed when his appendicitis was overlooked because he experienced pain on the left, rather than the normal location, on the right.

Situs inversus totalis is relatively rare, affecting one in 10,000 people........

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