Had it not been for the seven-centimetre-long tumour in Ashok Shivnani's right kidney, doctors at Lilavati, who were scheduled to operate on him, woulnever have stumbled on a case that is rarer than rare in medical history.

Suspecting that something was not quite normal when they viewed the scans and X-rays of the tumour, the medicos ordered a two-dimensional echocardiogram and angiogram of the 64-year-old patient. It was then that they realized, to their shock, that most of his abdominal organs and blood vessels were either reversed or misplaced.

Shivnani's case comes closest to a rare congenital disorder called 'situs inversus,' in which the organs of the chest and abdomen are arranged in a mirror-image reversal of normal positioning. Doctors say that he is, in all probability, the only person in the world to have such a haphazard abdominal structure.

However, the doctors operating on Shivnani maintained that he did not need any treatment for his abnormal organ structure.

"Generally, people suffering from situs invertus lead a fairly asymptomatic life. This is also the case with Shivnani. He will not need any surgery to change the positions of the organs and veins," they said.