Medical students at Oregon Health and Science University think they found during an anatomy class the longest-lived person with transposed organs.
Rose Marie Bentley lived 99 years without knowing her organs were located on the opposite side of her body. Medical students at OHSU found out after she donated her body for anatomy class.
Courtesy of the Bentley Family
Rose Marie Bentley of Molalla donated her body to OHSU, and her condition was only discovered after students started examining her in their anatomy course.
She lived 99 years without knowing she had situs inversus — a condition where her liver, stomach and other abdominal organs were located on the opposite side of her body.
“I knew something was up, but it took us a while to figure out how she was put together,” said Cam Walker, an assistant professor of anatomy at OHSU.
He estimates that only about one in 50 million people born with situs inversus lives long enough to become an adult. It usually results in life-threatening heart problems and other abnormalities.
Walker reached out to her family.
“To know if one of her five children, or all of her five children or none of them, have situs inversus … [It's] a question that we wanted to look at,” he said.
Bentley’s family says she had no chronic health problems aside from arthritis. None of her children were aware of the condition and they don’t think she knew either. But one of her daughters, Louise Allee of Canby, told OHSU her mother would have loved the attention.
Rose Marie Bentley in her youth. “My mom would think this was so cool,” said her daughter, Louise Allee.
Courtesy of the Bentley Family
“My mom would think this was so cool,” she said. “She would be tickled pink that she could teach something like this. She would probably get a big smile on her face, knowing that she was different, but made it through.”
Bentley had three organs removed during her life. But only the surgeon who removed her appendix recorded its unusual location.
Bentley and her husband, James Bentley, owned and operated the Bentley Feed Store in Molalla. OHSU said they decided to donate to the OHSU Body Donation Program after reading a poem about loved ones after they die.
Rose Marie Bentley died in 2017. Her husband died 13 years earlier.
Medical literature describes two similar cases, but they died in their 70s.