Bert Janssen, 57, a married father of two son, has been officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world’s longest-surviving heart transplant recipient. He received the new organ after being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy at the age of 17. He has now had the transplant for 39 years and more than 100 days.
Reuters published a full profile on Janssen, noting that no doctors in the Netherlands were able to perform a heart transplant at the time so a cardiologist from England had to be brought into to do the job. He told the publication that he considers the day he received the transplant “more important than his birthday.”
All these years later, Janssen remains in good health. He has started to “slow down” in recent years, he said, but he still does “more or less what I want.”
The previous Guinness record for the longest-surviving heart transplant recipient was nearly 35 years. That mark was set in 2021.
Click the link below to read the full profile from Reuters:
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.