Tribute to Sir Roy Calne

The team at Children’s Liver Disease Foundation are sad to learn of the death of Professor Sir Roy Calne, the pioneering surgeon who led the first liver transplant operation in Europe in 1968 and who carried out the first liver transplant on a child in the UK.

It was Professor Calne’s operation on two year old Ben Hardwick at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in 1984 which attracted national attention, following a campaign by BBC’s “That’s Life!” programme drawing attention to the lack of donor livers available for children.

Although Ben sadly died following his second transplant, thousands of children have since been successfully transplanted.

Sir Roy was delighted to see that transplantation had become an established treatment for childhood liver disease. In 2014 he commented to CLDF:

“I am more than pleased to celebrate the flourishing of liver transplantation for children. What started as an exceedingly risky and difficult exercise has now become routine and particularly satisfying are the number of patients who have survived for a really long time after a liver transplant with excellent quality of life.  The contribution of Esther Rantzen in creating awareness of the need for organ donation was pivotal in starting the programme.  I would like to salute and thank all the long-term survivors and also their families and the families of donors and patients who did not do well but nevertheless paved the way for progress in this new form of life-saving surgical treatment.”

Michelle Wilkins, Head of Services at CLDF commented: “We have the privilege of working with a whole generation of children born with liver disease who have survived into adulthood and it is a wonderful thing to see. Childhood liver transplantation has saved  thousands of lives and Sir Roy’s legacy benefits all of us in the paediatric liver community. We send  our condolences to his family.”