A 27-year-old woman arrived at a Beijing hospital 24 weeks into her pregnancy with 12 hours of chest and back pain and a blood pressure of 200/120. Scans showed a tear running through her aorta, the body's largest artery. They also showed something no surgical team expects in an emergency: her heart, great vessels, and abdominal organs were all arranged in reverse.
Surgeons at Beijing Anzhen Hospital's aortic disease center describe the operation in a case report published in August 2026 in Interdisciplinary CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery. The woman survived and was still doing well 10 years later. The fetus died the day after surgery.
