A man who lived for 40 years with a heart transplant was included in the Guinness Book of Records.

He was one of the first to undergo surgery

Dutchman Bert Janssen was able to quickly return to an “active lifestyle” after a heart transplant almost 40 years ago. He is the longest surviving heart transplant patient and is included in the Guinness Book of Records.

Bert Janssen, 57, from the Netherlands, lived for almost 40 years with a donor heart, which he received at a hospital in London in the 1980s. All these years later, he admits that he is “still grateful for the incredible gift the donor gave him.”

He was being treated for cardiomyopathy, a condition that affects the heart’s ability to pump blood throughout the body. The diagnosis was made after he developed flu-like symptoms when he was 17 years old. His cardiologist in Holland had links to Harefield Hospital and transplant pioneer Professor Magdi Yacoub, who performed the operation on 6 June 1984. The fact is that at that time this procedure was not carried out in the Netherlands.

“Everything went very quickly. Just a week after arriving in Harefield, two hearts became available following a major car accident in London. Janssen had a match with one of them, and the heart was transplanted,” reports The Sky News.

His operation was the 107th transplant at Harefield Hospital. The first was performed by Magdi in 1980, and since then the center has performed thousands of transplants, with 54 performed in 2022-23.

The record holder himself admits that he “never could have imagined that he would go so far.”

“I think the most important thing is that I set a benchmark for others. It has now been officially proven that you can live this long with a donor heart. I expect that the mark will move a little further, and I will be glad if others beat my record in due time,” Bert Janssen shared with the British media.

Harefield Hospital’s head of heart transplantation, Fernando Risgo Gil, said: “It is fantastic news to hear that one of our first transplant patients continues to live such a full and happy life for so long after surgery.”