Liver transplants have come a long way since the first life-saving operation was carried out in Birmingham at the Queen Elizabeth (QE) Hospital.

And, 30 years on from that initial pioneering procedure in January 1982, staff at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) are now looking back with pride at the role their predecessors played.

QEHB liver transplant surgeon Mr Simon Bramhall said transplantation was a pioneering and much riskier procedure 30 years ago.

“The operations were significantly longer and the outcomes were also worse,” he said. “The operation to remove the liver took an average of around eight hours, and it then took an average of 12 hours to carry out the transplant.

"Now, the average operations take around four hours in each case.”

Mr Bramhall said the very first transplant in Birmingham was carried out on 19 January 1982 by pioneering former surgeon Paul McMaster: “He used to get in his own car – an old police Jaguar – and drive to the donor hospital, which could be anywhere in the country, perform the donor operation, and then bring the liver back to Birmingham and transplant it the same day.".

Sadly the very first liver transplant patient died soon after the operation. But, despite the risk, the next three patients survived between 20 and 28 years.

Mr Bramhall said survival rates had continued to improve significantly, from only around 34 per cent in the early 1980s to more than 85 per cent now. At the same time, the number of liver transplants has also grown, from just three in that first year of 1982, to more than three a week now.

Retired liver specialist Professor Elwyn Elias, who still has an honorary role with University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), was a key member of the pioneering team involved in the first liver transplants at the QE.

He recalled: “It was an amazing thing in those days. Liver transplantation was done in very few places, such as Hanover in Germany and Cambridge. But Paul McMaster, who came to the QE in 1980, was one of only two people at that time able to transplant livers.

“He showed a degree of pioneering spirit and initiative, but he still faced a tremendous uphill battle in the early days because there was no separate funding for it and the results at that time weren’t very good.

“The survival rate was very low but, over the next two or three years, the results became a lot better, and then the Department of Health decided to support it, partly because of what we had achieved.”

Prof Elias said his role was to examine liver patients to see which ones were likely to die without a transplant.

“I think it’s great and wonderful that the hospital now does an average of three liver transplants a week compared to that first year, when we only did three in total.”

Case study

Yvonne Munro has a constant daily reminder of the liver transplant that saved her life almost 30 years ago – her son Kelsey.

After having her transplant operation in March 1985, Yvonne went on to become the first liver recipient in the country to have a baby.

Now aged 23, Kelsey was born in May 1988 to write his own line in the liver transplantation history book.

Yvonne, 62, from Little Haywood in Staffordshire, said: “I started having liver trouble when I was 19, when I was diagnosed with hepatitis, but it gradually got worse.

“It was about eight months after my first child, Hylton, was born, so I don’t know whether it was anything to do with childbirth, or whether it was due to my immune system.

“But it got worse over the years and eventually developed into cirrhosis, which is when it was decided I needed a transplant. Fortunately, I am quite a common blood group so I was found a match.”

Yvonne, who under the care of Prof Elwyn Elias and operated on by Paul McMaster, initially rejected her new organ.

“I had a really bad rejection and felt dreadful for the first few weeks. But, once I got over that, I have been absolutely fantastic. It’s made a huge difference to my life. I wouldn’t have been here without this transplant, especially as they found an enlarged vein had burst on the wall of my stomach.”

Yvonne had to wait more than three years before Kelsey, who hopes to become a photographer with the Royal Air Force, was born by caesarean, weighing just 4lbs 4oz.

“About a year after my transplant I asked if I could have a baby because I didn’t know anyone else who had had one. They said they didn’t see why not. I got pregnant almost straight away, but it didn’t form into a baby. So I waited another year and got pregnant at 37.

“Now, I just thank the doctors every day for what they have given me.”