57 year old is world's longest-surviving heart transplant patient

57 year old is world’s longest-surviving heart transplant patient

Bert Janssen from the Netherlands is the world’s longest-surviving heart transplant patient having survived for 39 years 252 days. The 57-year-old underwent a heart transplantation surgery in 1984 when he was 17 years old.

Janssen breaks the previous record held by Harold Sokyrka from Canada, who held the record of 34 years and 359 days in 2021.

Janssen suffered from cardiomyopathy, a condition characterized by abnormalities in the heart muscle, impairing its ability to pump blood effectively. This disorder can lead to symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, swelling of the legs, and irregular heartbeat. Cardiomyopathy can result from various factors, including genetics, infections, toxins, and certain medical conditions. There are different types of cardiomyopathy, such as dilated, hypertrophic, and restrictive cardiomyopathy, each with distinct features and treatment approaches. Management typically involves medications to control symptoms, lifestyle modifications, and in severe cases, procedures like implantable devices or heart transplant may be necessary to improve heart function and quality of life.

“Someone I did not know at all just told me that I was very sick and had only about six months left,” Janssen told the Guinness World Records. No heart transplants had been performed in the Netherlands at the time, and doctors told Janssen that there was nothing they could do.

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He underwent heart transplantation at Harefield Hospital in England by Prof Sir Magdi Yacoub and was the 107th such patient in the hospital.

He celebrated the 30th anniversary of his heart transplant with his wife in 2014.

Janssen said that he had two rejections in the first few months of the surgery, but had no complications later. “In the first years after the transplant, I was not aware of the impact of my medication. Developing more and more side effects, it felt more and more like being at the mercy of the pills that I simply need to survive,” he revealed.

He lives an active life. He worked for over 30 years in a furniture shop, then as a yacht carpenter, then as a school janitor. Even after retirement in 2017, he engages himself by air gliding regularly.

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