A Dutch man lived 39 years and 100 days with a transplanted heart
Dutchman Bert Janssen has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the person with the longest period of life with a heart transplant. The 57-year-old Dutchman received a heart transplant in 1984, when he was 17 years old, and as of September 2023 has lived with it for 39 years and 100 days.
The world's first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by South African heart surgeon Christian Barnard on December 3, 1967. The patient, Louis Washkanski, died 18 days later of pneumonia. Before that, Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov had been actively engaged in experimental transplantology and studied the principles of this surgical discipline on dogs, to which he transplanted hearts, lungs and even heads.
About 3500 heart transplants are performed annually worldwide, with the vast majority (about 2000-2500) performed in the United States. The prognosis for heart transplants is believed to have improved significantly in recent decades, with the American Heart Association calculating in 2009 that the five-year survival rate for heart recipients was 73.2 percent for men and 69 percent for women. The record holder for longevity with a donor heart was thought to be Canadian Harold Sokirka, who lived with a donor heart for 34 years and 359 days as of 2021.
Now the new record holder is recognized as 57-year-old Bert Janssen from Herkenbos in the Netherlands, who at the time of September 2023 lived with a transplant for 39 years and 100 days. At age 17, he was diagnosed with severe cardiomyopathy, which quickly led to the development of heart failure. In 1984, the Netherlands did not yet know how to transplant hearts, so the teenager was sent to Britain's Harfield Hospital. In June of that year, Janssen received a heart from a young man who had died in a car accident.
Janssen has a wife and two children, is a glider pilot, fit and healthy, although he has had to "slow down" in recent years. According to the cardiologist who is treating the record holder, Janssen followed all the necessary recommendations after the operation, and in particular, led a healthy and active lifestyle.