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The recipient, a 62-year-old man, is recovering from the operation, and doctors said they expect to send him home as soon as this weekend.

Last Saturday, Richard Slayman made history: He became the first living person to receive a genetically modified kidney from a pig, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said Thursday.

Slayman, 62, whose kidneys had failed and who had been on dialysis, underwent the four-hour operation Saturday to receive the pig kidney, said his nephrologist, Dr. Winfred Williams, the associate chief of the nephrology division at Mass General.

“It really is a groundbreaking milestone,” William said. “Should the kidney continue to work well and this is a success, I think it represents a breakthrough in a number of different areas.”

The first successful pig kidney transplant in a living recipient — a milestone in the field of so-called xenotransplantation, or animal-to-human transplant — could offer hope to the tens of thousands of people in the U.S. on the waiting list for organ transplants, as well as countless others worldwide.