Body donor’s rare anatomy offers valuable lessons

99-year-old rural Oregonian may have been the oldest-known person with rare, life-threatening condition

By Franny White April 08, 2019 Portland, Oregon

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This medical illustration shows a rare condition called situs inversus with levocardia, discovered by medical students in a body donor at OHSU. Rose Marie Bentley’s abdominal organs were a mirror image of typical human anatomy, meaning they were transposed right to left. She also had an abnormality called a hiatal hernia, which is when a portion of the stomach protrudes through the diaphragm, a thin muscle that separates the abdomen from the chest. (Lynn Kitagawa for OHSU)

Situs inversus with levocardia

Medical students discovered a rare condition in a body donor at OHSU. Rose Marie Bentley's superior vena cava (SVC) vein was unusually long. That vein normally collects deoxygenated blood from the head, neck and upper limbs, but Bentley’s superior vena cava also collected deoxygenated blood from her rib cage wall and abdominal cavity. Her three liver veins also combined to drain directly into her heart’s right atrium, whereas those liver veins normally first pass filtered, deoxygenated blood through another vein called the inferior vena cava, which then empties into the right atrium. (Lynn Kitagawa for OHSU)

Rose Marie Bentley

Rose Marie Bentley, shown here in an undated photo near the end of her life, apparently lived 99 years without knowing she had a rare anatomical condition called situs inversus with levocardia. (Photo courtesy of Bentley family)

Rose Marie Bentley

Cam Walker Ph.D. (2019)

Cam Walker, Ph.D., April 1, 2019. (OHSU/Kristyna Wentz-Graff)

Mark Hankin Ph.D. (2019)

Mark Hankin, Ph.D., April 1, 2019. (OHSU/Kristyna Wentz-Graff)

Nielsen Warren (2019)

OHSU medical student Warren Nielsen, 2019. (OHSU)

Situs inversus with levocardia

(Left to right) Cam Walker, Ph.D., and his colleague Mark Hankin, Ph.D., researched a case detailing a rare condition discovered in the body of a 99-year-old woman who donated her body for to OHSU. Students in a gross anatomy class discovered Rose Marie Bentley had a rare condition called situs inversus with levodardia, meaning her liver, stomach and other abdominal organs were transposed right to left, but her heart remained on the left side of her chest. (OHSU/Kristyna Wentz-Graff)