Surgeon who carried out Europe’s first liver transplant dies aged 93

Prof Sir Roy Calne, the pioneering surgeon who led a team which performed the first liver transplant in Europe, has died at the age of 93. On 2 May 1968 Calne performed the gamechanging operation at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, a year after the US’s first successful liver transplant. In 1978 he became the first doctor to use an immunosuppressant, which was found to be effective in reducing organ rejection.

Calne performed a series of surgical “world firsts” and his work on liver transplants offered thousands of people with end stage liver disease a normal life, the Royal Society said. His family said Calne died in Cambridge late on Saturday evening. His son Russell told the BBC that Calne was “an incredible person” to have as a father.

“He was an amazing character, a slight eccentric and a wonderful father to six children,” he said. “We were all very, very proud of him for everything he has achieved and done, and we’ve been to some amazing places due to his accolades.” In interviews, Calne has said that, at the time, he did not consider the transplant a milestone.

The operation on a 46 year old woman with liver cancer was thought to be just “one step” in developing transplants, he said in 2018. Despite a successful operation, the patient died two months later from lung inflammation. Asked whether he had recognised the significance of the procedure, Calne said: “We didn’t really look at it quite like that.

We looked at it one step at a time. We could do the operation, does the immunosuppression work? Can we prevent the patient getting infected when they are in that poor state?” Addressing fears over tackling complex cases, he said: “I think there is more caution, there’s more blame. “If you did your best trying to treat somebody who had a lethal disease, and they died despite you doing your best, it was I think regarded as par for the course.

That would happen. But now, people will immediately say, ‘whose fault is it?’” Cambridge University Hospitals NHS foundation trust said Sir Roy was professor of surgery between 1965 and 1998, performing Cambridge’s first kidney transplant in 1965 and Europe’s first liver transplant three years later.

In July 2020, Angela Dunn was believed to be the longest surviving kidney transplant patient in the world, having reached 74 years old. She expressed her gratitude to Calne on the 50th anniversary of the surgery, adding that prior to the operation in her mid 20s she did not expect to live to 30 years old.

Addenbrooke’s hospital named its specialist transplant unit after the medic, honouring his “world firsts”, and a plaque was placed at the entrance. At the time, Prof Chris Watson credited the surgeon with putting “Cambridge on the map as an international centre for excellence”. In 2021 it was the only transplant centre to perform all abdominal organ transplants, with more than 350 conducted each year, Watson added..