Dextrocardia
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| ICD-10 | Q24.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| ICD-9 | 746.87 | |
| DiseasesDB | 3617 | |
| MeSH | C14.240.400.280 | |
Dextrocardia is a peculiar condition in which the heart is positioned on the right side of the chest while it is normally on the left (mirror-image). The name is derived from dexter in Latin meaning "on the right" and cardio meaning "of the heart".
If the rest of the organ systems are reversed, the condition is called situs inversus. Individuals with both dextrocardia and situs inversus (in which all the organs are flipped, leaving the heart in its normal place relative to the rest of the viscera) suffer a far lesser rate of congenital heart defects than do people with only one of the two conditions.
[edit] References in popular culture
Dr. Julius No, the James Bond villain from Dr. No, suffered from dextrocardia, as well as Fortune in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
In CSI: a murder victim is found to have died of a fatal blow to the chest that would normally have little effect, except the killer who attacked him was unaware that the man had dextrocardia and accidentally gave the victim a heart attack.
In another episode of CSI, a victim of a shooting is murdered by a gunshot to the right side of the back, that normally would have punctured a lung at the very worst, but in this case, struck the heart which was on the opposite side of the body that it is normally located on.
In Vampire: The Masquerade, dextrocardia is a merit that characters can select. This is because a vampire with his heart on the right-hand side is harder to stake through the heart.
In the film Four Minutes, a young Roger Bannister diagnoses a man as having dextrocardia while attending medical school.
[edit] References
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