DEXTROCARDIA AND ISOLATED LAEVOCARDIA I: ISOLATED LAiEVOCARDIA

Isolated lkvocardia, with the heart on the left but with the abdominal viscera inverted, is less well known than its counterpart, isolated dextrocardia, but is not very rare. In this paper we are reporting our findings in 20 patients, and Campbell (1963) has given reasons for thinking that its incidence may be about 1 in 22,000 of the general population. In any series of patients with cyanotic heart disease, there will be some with isolated lkvocardia and others with dextrocardia. Among our first 670 cyanotic patients, seen in 1947-53, there were nearly 2 per cent with isolated levocardia, nearly 3 per cent with isolated dextrocardia, and nearly 1 per cent with situs inversus and other malformations of the heart (Table 1). This means that nearly 6 per cent have complete or partial inversion of the viscera, compared with rather less than 1 per cent among those with acyanotic heart disease. Berri (1958), among 2695 patients with cyanotic or acyanotic congenital heart disease at the Hospital de Ni-nos de Buenos Aires, and Heim de Balsac et al. (1954) among 1100 similar patients in Paris, found about the same proportion with dextrocardia (2 2%y and 2 1 %Y against our 2-5%y) and a rather smaller proportion with isolated levocardia (0O4A% and 0-6y/ respectively against our 1 2%y).