Surgeons have transplanted a pig’s heart into a man with end-stage congestive heart failure who is now “recovering well and communicating with his loved ones”.

The surgery on Lawrence Faucette was performed on 20 September by a team from the University of Maryland Medical Center in the US.

Several transplant hospitals had ruled him ineligible for a human heart due to peripheral vascular disease and complications with internal bleeding.

So far, the pig heart was functioning well in Mr Faucette who was breathing on his own and showing no signs of a hyperacute immune rejection, the doctors reported last week.