Keith Castle

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] 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.[2] 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."[3] Castle survived for more than five years after the operation.[1]