Keith Castle Explained

Keith Castle, at the age of 52, was the recipient of the first successful heart transplant operation to be carried out in the United Kingdom.^{[1] [2]} The operation was performed in August 1979 at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire by surgeon Sir Terence English, who would later describe Castle as a "wonderful man," but "not an ideal patient from a medical point of view" on account of Castle's vascular disease of the legs, peptic ulcer, and history of smoking.^[3] In the year following the transplant, the British Medical Journal published an article entitled "Function Of The Transplanted Heart" referencing the operation: "How well does the transplanted (and therefore denervated) heart perform? The immediate and practical answer is, well enough, as the activities of patients such as Mr Keith Castle have shown."^[4] Castle survived for more than five years after the operation.^[2]

Notes and References

1. Park . Jay J . English . Sir Terence . Follow Your Heart: Trials and Tribulations of Sir Terence English and the First Successful Heart Transplant in the United Kingdom . Cureus . 17 July 2023 . 10.7759/cureus.42051 . free . 37602124 . 10434719 .
2. News: 18 August 2019 . Papworth marks first 'successful' UK heart transplant . https://web.archive.org/web/20240324143705/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-49337327 . 24 March 2024 . 24 March 2024 . BBC News.
3. Book: Young . Louisa . The Heart . 2007 . Yale University Press . 978-0-300-12510-8 . Peto . James . New Haven . 35–36 . 1. The human heart: an overview, interview with Sir Terence English . https://books.google.com/books?id=eCiv3oq5JOQC&pg=PA35.
4. Function Of The Transplanted Heart . The British Medical Journal . 1980 . 281 . 6239 . 529 . 7000263 . 1713464 . 0007-1447.