(ANSA) - London, March 27 - The first heart transplant using a non-beating heart was successfully carried out in Europe, the British press reported on Friday.

The surgery was performed at the Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire. Donor hearts are usually from people who are brain-stem dead, but whose hearts are still beating.

In this case, the organ came from a donor whose heart and lungs had stopped functioning, so-called circulatory death.

The patient, a 60-year-old man who suffered a heart attack in 2008, is now recovering well.

