The Guinness Book of World Records has confirmed a Dutch man as the world's longest-surviving heart transplant recipient.
Bert Janssen, 57, has lived with a donor heart for 39 years and more than 252 days. Mr. Janssen was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy at age 17. At the time, heart transplants were not yet being performed in the Netherlands, so his cardiologist referred him to a hospital in London where he underwent the procedure in 1984.
"It feels like an honour to have reached this milestone, but what I think is most important is that I set a benchmark for others," Mr. Janssen said in a Feb. 13 news release. "It is now officially proven that it is possible to come this far while having a donor heart. I assume the marker will yet move quite a bit further and I will be pleased if others will break my record in due course."
The previous record was 34 years and 359 days, set by a Canadian man named Harold Sokyrka in 2021.