Surgical challenges during open pancreaticoduodenectomy in a patient with situs inversus totalis: A rare case report and literature review

BACKGROUND: Situs inversus totalis is a rare congenital anomaly defined by a mirror-image of thoracic and abdominal viscera. Discrete cases of situs inversus totalis and its association with gastrointestinal tumors have been reported. Here we report the first case of pancreatic-head serous cystadenoma in patient with situs inversus totalis. CASE PRESENTATION: A 68-year-old woman presented with an abdominal mass that appeared four months ago. She was otherwise asymptomatic and her physical examination was unremarkable. Chest X-ray revealed dextrocardia. CT scan confirmed situs inversus totalis with an irregular, clear border, heterogenous pancreatic-head mass measuring 11 cm. Laboratory studies were within the reference range and pancreatic tumor markers were normal. We performed an elective open pancreaticoduodenectomy followed by an end-to-side pancreaticojejunostomy, an end-to-side choledochojenunostomy, and a side-to-side gastrojejunostomy. The immediate postoperative course was uneventful, and she was discharged four days later without any complications. Four-month of follow-ups revealed no recurrent or relapsed disease. DISCUSSION: Although the steps of the Whipple procedure are almost the same in SIT patients. The main differences during the operation in SIT patients are the anatomical variations and how the surgeon will cope with them to avoid any mistakes. CONCLUSION: The surgeons should improve their skills and gain control in both hands to easily adjust with the anatomic variations of situs inversus totalis and reduce the operation time and the associated risk of long operation time.