Edith Helm, Longest Surviving Transplant Recipient, 1935 -2011

Edith (recipient) on the left and her sister Wanda (donor) on the right.

BOSTON -- The world’s longest surviving organ transplant recipient and the first woman to receive a kidney transplant and successfully give birth following transplantation, Edith Helm, 76, has died in her home state of Oklahoma.

The May 1956 kidney transplant procedure, the third at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was performed by a team led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Joseph Murray, according to a press release from the hospital.Helm was a beautician living in Chandler, Okla., when she learned she was dying of kidney failure.

Helms was the recipient of a kidney from her identical twin sister, Wanda Foster, who following her kidney donation, also successfully gave birth three times.

In December of 1954, Murray performed the first successful kidney transplant in the world in which one twin donated his kidney to his brother.

Because pregnancy puts a strain on a woman’s healthy pair of kidneys it was not known how a single, transplanted kidney would perform.

"Fears were allayed in 1958 when Edith successfully gave birth to a son and two years later to a daughter," the hospital said.