Century of surgical progress saves 3,000 lives each year

In 1902, Alexis Carrel paved the way for such procedures when he surgically joined blood vessels for the first time.

Three years later, the first corneal transplant was carried out, restoring the sight of a blind man.

The world’s first successful kidney transplant took place in Boston, USA, in 1954 and five years later the procedure was successfully carried out in the UK.

South Africa was the location of the first heart transplant, carried out in Cape Town, in 1967, and a year later the first UK operation was performed in London.

Both patients died within weeks of their transplants, however, but the procedures were a major breakthrough and more than 300 heart transplants are now carried out every year nationwide.

In 1967 the world’s first liver transplant was carried out in Denver, USA, and the UK’s first took place in Cambridge a year later.

Kidney donor cards were introduced in 1972 and replaced in 1981 with cards allowing people to express a wish to donate a number of organs.

The first combined heart and lung transplant in the UK was successfully performed in London in 1983, followed by the country’s first successful lung-only transplant three years later.

In 1994 the National Organ Donor Register was drawn up to meet the growing demand for transplants. Today, more than 16m people are signed up.

UK Transplant was founded in 2000 to manage tissue typing and organ matching and increase donor numbers.

It merged with the National Blood Service in 2005 to form NHS Blood and Transplant.

Yorkshire staked its place in British transplant history in 2007 when the country’s first living liver donation took place at St Jame’s Hospital in Leeds.

Two pairs of surgeons worked simultaneously in separate theatres to transplant part of donor David Lomas’s liver to his father Stephen in an eight-hour operation.

Dr Charlie Milson said at the time it was a “massive leap forward” that could save the lives of many liver transplant patients, one in five of whom were expected to die while on the waiting list.

The world’s first full face transplant was carried out in 2010 on a Spanish farmer known only as Oscar, who was left badly disfigured by a shooting accident.

The first partial face transplant, of a chin, nose and lips, was carried out five years earlier on French patient Isabelle Dinoire, who had been mauled by her dog when she passed out.

More than 10,000 people in the UK currently need a transplant and three a day will die waiting.

To find out more about organ donation and register as a donor visit www.organdonation.nhs.uk.