A NORTH-EAST woman has astounded the medical world with a 100-year-old kidney – thought to be the oldest successfully transplanted organ of its kind in the world.

Sue Westhead of Houghton-le-Spring, on Wearside, received the successful transplant at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary in 1973, after being diagnosed with kidney disease.

The kidney was donated by her mother Ann Metcalfe, who was 57 at the time, after it was found that Sue only had the equivalent of a tenth of her kidney function.

Forty-three years later the donated kidney – and Sue – are still going strong, even though doctors estimate kidneys from a living donor can only last a maximum of 20 years before a further transplant is required.

Sue, who is now 68-years-old, says she had real doubts about how successful the transplanted organ would be.

Speaking to the BBC Newcastle Breakfast programme broadcast between 7am to 10am today, she said: “It was a pretty scary time...even when I was still on the ward people were dying… I remember thinking if I get five years I'll be happy. That was 43 years ago and my kidney is heading for 101 years-old in November."

When asked why she thinks her kidney is still going strong, Sue credited her mother saying: "I think it's down to my mother's good genes. She must have come from good stock.

"My Mum literally gave me life, because I wouldn't have lived much longer...I could hardly walk, I was a different colour – I was yellow and all of a sudden I had a rosy glow."

Since the transplant Sue says she has looked after herself and rigorously taken the almost 20 pills a day to make sure her donated organ isn’t rejected.

When told that doctors and medical experts believe she may have the oldest surviving transplanted kidney in the UK and perhaps the world, she told BBC Newcastle: “(It’s) absolutely mind-blowing. Every superlative you can think of.”

Experts at the British Transplantation Society, the Human Tissue Authority, NHS Blood and Transplant, Kidney Research UK, said no-one knows of any other person in the UK who has a transplanted kidney that's more than 100 years-old.

However, it is impossible to verify whether Sue has the oldest living transplanted kidney in the world due to the limited recorded data.

British Transplantation Society president and Professor of Transplant Surgery at Newcastle University, Professor Derek Manas, said: "It’s an amazing story of encouragement and hope for people on dialysis and for encouraging people to donate as living donors or to join the Organ Donor Register. I think Sue must be one of the longest survivors."