Heterotaxia

Heterotaxia (coming from the Greek 'heteros' meaning different and 'taxis' meaning arrangement) is the right/left transposition of thoracic and/or abdominal organs. It encompasses a wide variety of disorders since there are multiple possibilities of right/left reversals, which may be complete (<i>situs inversus totalis</i> or <i>situs inversus</i> <i>i.e.</i> all the organs normally found on the right are on the left and vice versa) or partial (incomplete <i>situs inversus</i> <i>i.e.</i> a limited number of organs are inversed - or <i>situs inversus ambiguous</i> <i>i.e.</i> a normally lateral organ is centrally located).